High school girls soccer: Coronado’s goal lifts Woodland over Pioneer

In the era of FieldTurf, Woodland High School’s soccer field is gradually becoming a relic, what with its natural grass surface and uneven bounces.

It’s becoming a throwback to a different time. But it’s not a throwaway — at least, not to the homestanding Wolves.

On Thursday, after Woodland’s girls used an Ariana Coronado goal in the latter part of the second half to edge Pioneer 1-0 in a key Tri-County Conference affair, Wolves coach Andres Olmedo made note of a spot just outside the 18-yard box on the south side of the field, a spot he calls “the ugly area” because of its dry and hard spots.

“That’s one of the things that we do — we practice in the ugly area and the girls wonder why,” Olmedo said. “And I tell them, you guys know the bounce, the other teams don’t know the bounce. So that’s the home-field advantage.

“You can tell that they know the bounce, they know what to expect. The Woodland High bounce.”

As is often the case when it plays at home, Woodland (8-3-1, 4-0-0 TCC) played toward the south goal in the second half, and while the ugly area wasn’t a direct part of the buildup to the winning goal, the Wolves did seem to be in the right places at the right times for most of the final 40 minutes.

Not much more than 15 minutes remained in the game when Woodland’s Brianna Hernandez sent a beautiful long pass from midfield to a streaking Ellie Burgess, who slipped past Patriots defender Cristal Renteria on the right side.

Burgess made one touch, then dropped a pass right in front of the goal to Coronado, who punched the ball to the right of diving Pioneer goalkeeper Cassandra Figueroa into the net.

“In the first half I missed a lot of opportunities but I had to deal with nervousness and all of that,” Coronado said. “But (on the winning goal) when I was thinking about the goal and where I was positioned, I was like, OK, I have to be calm, I can’t panic. And once I took that step forward and took the step back and picked my head up to see where the goalie was, I just placed it nicely into far corner. It was a good feeling.”

It was also the team-leading 15th goal of the year for Coronado, but scoring is not all she does in this, her sophomore season. She has also become Woodland’s primary taker of corner kicks — a role the graduated Emily King occupied the past few years — and had a couple of near perfectly placed corners just prior to scoring her goal.

But, as she admitted, Coronado is not so much of a veteran that she’s immune from catching a bout of nerves. In fact, on a roster dominated by freshmen and sophomores, lone seniors Hernandez and Alexis Olmedo, both midfielders, had to calm some of their younger teammates Thursday both with their actions and their words.

“I talked to them before the game … just get those nerves out. It’s not worth it. You’re going to crack under the pressure,” Alexis Olmedo said. “We tried, but I mean, it still gets to them.

“It started to kind of die down a little after (the start of) second half. They started getting the movement, and I think that’s when we started being able to create more chances, kind of play more of our game instead of just getting the ball and kicking it up.”

Last year in the first meeting between the teams, Pioneer was able to gain a 1-0 victory at home by scoring an early goal on a throw-in, then playing a smarter, calmer game the rest of the way. Thursday the Patriots again had some opportunities to take an early lead, but attackers like Giselle Rocha and Alexia Flores had fewer chances overall than did the Wolves’ forwards.

“The game was very even, and when you make little mistakes, once again, you lose the game,” Pioneer coach Anibal Morales said. “We have our chances and they didn’t go in.”

Pioneer (5-3-3, 2-2-0 TCC) played without starting midfielder Alondra Gomez, who is expected back next week after breaking her hand in the recent Woodland Cal Springs Classic. Also, defenders Rachel May and Arabella Romero were out because of what Morales called “stuff that had to do with school.”

But prior to the game Morales was less focused on those absences than on Woodland’s field.

“We noticed that the grass was a little bit tall. The players get tired more and the ball doesn’t move that fast. But that’s not an excuse because both teams were running on the same field.

“But I noticed like, oh my god, this is going to be an interesting game.”