The Lady Mats (11-4-6) played their way into the CCS quarterfinals after a 1-0 win against Lincoln High School (11-5-0) on Feb. 21. The game marks the team’s fifth shutout in a row, and its ninth straight undefeated game (6-0-3). Despite passive play with one-touches and ineffective passing in the first half, the team was able to score and prevent dangerous chances by Lincoln in the second half. Around 37 minutes into the first half, senior Claire Nastari was finally able to passed to senior Jessica Rahn, who scored the first and only goal.

“We possessed the ball better in the second half than in the first half,” assistant coach Greg Wendschlag said. “The first half we were kind of kicking it and chasing it a little bit. In the second half, we kind of figured out we could control the ball, have a little space and use each other.”

Even before the first goal, the Matadors had a lot of good scoring chances. Early in the first half, junior Hadar Sachs ran a breakaway, kicking the ball towards the goal. Rahn attempted to score the goal off a header, but the Lincoln goalie saved it.

On the 31st minute, junior Casey Kute kicked the ball in off a corner kick from the left. In a scramble to score, sophomore Kelly Ruckstuhl kicked the ball, which hit the crossbar directly from below and landed in the Lincoln goalie’s hands.

Six minutes after the previous scoring attempt from a corner, Kute put the ball into play once more from the corner. After two players missed opportunities to score, Nastari kicked the ball towards the goal and Rahn touched the ball once more and scored, making the score 1-0 and giving the Lady Mats the lead at halftime.

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“We’ve got a good defense, but we’ve gotta score. Our goal is to practice these three days, work on our offense, see if we can get a goal or two because we’re confident we can hold them. It’s all about of offense.

                                                                                                                               – assistant coach Greg Wendschlag

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In the second half, LHS came close to scoring off of two consecutive corner kicks 16 minutes in, but both attempts were stopped by goalkeeper junior Gal Haroush. The Lady Mats improved their game play, communicating well and anticipating the ball’s movement. Multiple times, defender junior Mimi Akaogi was able to drive down the field in an attempt to score, but was blocked by the LHS defense.

“I was just thinking, ‘Let’s just get this ball through, get someone in, get a shot off,’” Akaogi said. “For some reason today, every time I got the ball, I went somewhere else — I didn’t feel like I was in the zone today. But I tried.”

Even though the Lady Mats were able to clinch a victory, the team hoped to have won 3-0 or 4-0 due to the difference in seeding. Regardless, the win propels them to the CCS quarterfinals against Carlmont High School (12-3-5) Feb. 25.

“We play Carlmont and they’re a seed ahead of us. We’ve had really good successes against teams that are good teams. We’ve had five shutouts in a row now, two of them being against teams that are seeded higher than Carlmont,” Wendschlag said. “We’ve got a good defense, but we’ve gotta score. Our goal is to practice these three days, work on our offense, see if we can get a goal or two because we’re confident we can hold them. It’s all about our offense.”

The fifth-seed Matadors (11-4-6) will play against fourth-seed Carlmont High School (12-3-5) in the quarterfinals on Feb. 25 at Terra Nova High School at 2 p.m.