Defending Channel League champions, the San Marcos girls soccer team, hosted Santa Barbara Monday night at Warkentin Stadium, hoping to take control of the standings once again from their crosstown rival.
Instead, neither side was able to muster a single goal and the contest ended in a 0-0 tie.
With the tie, Santa Barbara remains atop the Channel League standings at the moment, currently boasting a 6-0-3 record for 21 points. San Marcos is four points behind, sitting at 5-1-2.
“We came here with the game plan,” said Santa Barbara coach Willie Sims. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to come here to San Marcos. We knew they were going to be good on the ball. We knew they’re going to try to penetrate passes.
“Our goal in the first half was to capitalize on everything and not let them score one, and as the game progressed, we knew we were going to get better and we thought we were the better team even in the second half.”
Both squads have a Channel League game Wednesday night before meeting again Friday night at Peabody Stadium.
“Santa Barbara has a great coaching staff, they have players that are high caliber and committed, so we knew we would have to fight and they would sit back and absorb the attack and try to counter,” San Marcos coach Brian “Ziggy” Ziegenhagen said.
Both teams had their high and low points Monday night.
For Santa Barbara, a lot of the high points came in the second half. During a 10-minute stretch, the Dons dominated time of possession and had some great looks to take the lead.
“It was a tale of two halves. They came out strong and really focused on their counter attacks and got in behind and threatened us a little bit more than the first half,” Ziegenhagen said.
In the 64th minute, senior Athena Bow-Graham had the ball inside the box and took a swing at the net, but the ensuing shot was just a bit high.
Three minutes later, a deep ball was served into Dons’ senior Caitlin Hansen, but the pass was just a bit too far ahead, allowing San Marcos’ keeper to come up with the ball.
“We were one or two passes away from scoring,” Sims said. “Our passes were just a little too far ahead of our girls, but overall we were confident coming in here. We knew what we needed to do to get a result and now we have them back at home Friday.”
San Marcos’ looks were limited as well, but their best opportunity to score came in the 65th minute.
Becca Rodriguez, the Royals winger, shot the ball from about 25 yards out. The high arcing shot would have gone in, if not for the Dons’ keeper, Carolina Koceman, who jumped and batted the ball away just in time.
Koceman finished with multiple saves on the night, coming up big when her team needed her.
“She’s just great for us. She’s done that for us the last few years. She just has a good sense of where she’s standing in goal and we feel very confident with her in the back line, allowing us to push our lines up,” Sims said.
San Marcos dominated the time of possession more in the first half, but were never ever able to string together the exact right amount of passes needed to get more shots on frame.
“There were good moments, but I don’t think we had a clear look on goal,” Ziegenhagen said.
“We had a good look on goal from Becca Rodriguez but the rest of it was more or less just half chances. And if you want to beat a team like Santa Barbara, you really got to create those opportunities.”
Asked about staying focused for Wednesday’s game before looking ahead to Friday, Ziegenhagen said they are only focusing on what they control.
“Regardless of who wins Channel League, both teams know that we’re going to be moving forward in the playoffs so we’re just trying to brace ourselves, so we can go into playoffs healthy and learning from these experiences.”