The Lady Dons headed to the City College of San Francisco on Saturday morning to play the St. Ignatius Wildcats. This was the first match-up of the season between these two schools. Acalanes was fired up and started the game with a great pass from junior Ella Del Rosario to sophomore Finley Graff who scored the first goal of the game. St. Ignatius took possession and attempted a shot, but sophomore goalie, Adelyn Horciza, made a great block to give possession back to the Dons. Junior Olivia Whipple made a great pass to Ella Del Rosario who shot and scored her first goal of the game. This duo switched things up and Ella passed to Olivia who scored goal #3. The Wildcats fought back and got themselves on the board bringing the score 3-1. Goalie Adelyn Horciza kept those great blocks going and senior Levand Koopah ended the first quarter of the game with a hat trick!
Quarter two started with an S.I. goal, bringing the score to 6-3. This fired up Acalanes and junior Sara Williams made a great pass to Ella to give the Dons one more to the tally. On the next possession, Ella threw the ball to Finley who sent another one to the back of the net. St. Ignatius wasn’t finished and they stole the ball and scored, bringing the score 8-4. Next came one of the best plays of the game when freshman Lily Briones passed the ball to Ella who was perfectly positioned in front of the cage and just tipped the ball into the cage. Levand followed with another goal and Ella ended the quarter with one more of her own. The Dons headed to halftime with an 11-5 lead.
The St. Ignatius kicked off the second half with more momentum and scored a goal right off the bat. Finley responded by sending the ball up the pool to Ella who was able to add one more for the Dons. Adelyn made another great save and then Ella threw the ball to Sara Williams who knocked in her first goal. The Wildcats stole the ball and were able to score once again, but Olivia Whipple and Finley Graff displayed beautiful teamwork with an assist from Olivia to Finley who scored, and then they repeated the same play for one more Aca goal bringing the score to 15-7. A timeout was called by Acalanes to switch goal tenders from Adelyn to freshman Lucy McShane. The Wildcats pounced quickly and sent one to the twine. Ella responded with her own goal and then Sara tossed the ball to Finley who made a Houdini shot from the outside that we think bounced off the goalie’s elbow into the goal to end the third quarter 17-10.
The final quarter started with a steal from Finley Graff who passed to Olivia Whipple who sent the ball up to Ella for a great goal from set . St. Ignatius was able to score one more goal before Acalanes ended the game with goals from Levand, Finley, and Lily for a final score of 21-12.
After cheering on the Junior Varsity squad, the whole group headed to Twin Peaks for a picnic lunch. No one predicted the thick fog bank or fierce winds, so it wasn’t the picnic the team had envisioned, but the girls huddled together to keep warm and had fun!
