Athletes of the Week: Fruita Girls Soccer

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) - The Fruita Monument High School Girls Soccer Team has been outright dominating on the soccer pitch, winning seven straight matches. But it’s not just that they’ve been winning but how they have been winning. In all of the seven wins during this winning streak the Wildcats haven’t surrendered a goal, shutting out their opponents in all of those games.

For reference the wildcats haven’t allowed a goal since the middle of March.

“I think what is working so well with our defense personally, is the communication. We have a bunch of strong chemistry within the backline in the midfield. So if there’s a problem, we identify it quick, and then we’ll talk about it. I’ll talk to my center-backs. If they see something I don’t because they’re behind me, they’ll tell me and so we all just listen to each other, and really communicate. That’s the key to our defensive success,” Senior Midfielder Gabrielle Marquez said.

“I think what we have been doing is focusing more on our team instead of our opponents, we’ve been focusing on building our team up and what our strengths are, as opposed to focusing on who we’re playing against. I think that’s helped a lot,” Senior Forward Regan Dare said.

According to Dare, one of the Wildcats biggest scoring threats, the near perfect defensive play helps feed into things on the offensive side of the ball.

“It helps me out because I know that there’s a not a ton of pressure, like I know that my defense is a wall back there and I can just take my chances and if I can get them in the net then that’s great,” Dare said.

The Wildcats win streak came at a great time; the team had lost the first two game of the season. But according to Marquez the team in those first two games, was very different compared to the team taking to the pitch now for the Wildcats.

“We needed that win, we needed that confidence back in us because our first two games were pretty tough. And it was a different team,” Marques said, “We hadn’t had our chemistry yet, so after those first two games we were like, okay they were our first games, what are we doing wrong? What are we doing good? Let’s applaud ourselves where we did a good jon, and then let’s also identity the negatives and fix them.”

While the Wildcats are rolling through their season schedule, they are looking forward to potentially doing damage in the postseason, where past Fruita teams haven’t always had a lot of success.

“This year. I think there’s about 15 of us seniors so it’s kind of like all or nothing because there are a few people going to play college, but this is our last high school season and it’s like we have this just passion within us to get as far as we possibly can,” Marquez said.

Copyright 2023 KJCT. All rights reserved.