Varsity Field Hockey defeated Wilcox High School 3-0 on Sept. 14 during its official first league game at home. MVHS maintained a strong offense throughout the game. After junior Zoe ​​Handelsman scored in the first quarter, freshman Monisha Preetham doubled the score in the second quarter and assisted senior Anna Jerolimov for a tip during a short corner in the fourth quarter. 

Sophomore Tvisha Jain, who played both as a midfielder and forward in the game, attributes the team’s win to its communication, which she says helped create a lot of chances to score on goal.

“I think there are a lot of big differences [from the last game] because half of our team moved up from JV,” Jain said. “I think we’re getting better at knowing each other and trusting each other. Our trust has developed a lot since our previous game, which is improving our performance.”

Junior Olivia Ho, who played defense, also agrees with Jain and believes that the team had an “offensive mindset” throughout the game. This helped the team score multiple times, which boosted the overall positive energy of the team.

“I think [the team spirit] was really high, especially after the second quarter since we scored more goals then,” Ho said.

The team practiced dribbling on the sidelines and crossing on the cage offensively before the game. Ho states that they were able to execute a lot of what they worked on during practice and hopes that they can practice more techniques in preparation for their next game at Fremont High School.

“That was something that we will definitely continue to implement, especially since that’s been a play that we’ve been working on during practice,” Ho said. “Now that we know how it works during games, we’ll be able to replicate it more easily.”

In addition to the team having a strong offensive performance, Jain believes that the defense “also played really well,” as they were able to maintain a clean sheet and quickly move the ball upfield. Jain says that due to the team demonstrating both a strong offense and defense, she feels optimistic about the results of the upcoming games.

“Hopefully we keep winning,” Jain said. “I think we have a good chance. Even though for our last couple of games, we have had zero to one or two subs, we’re keeping our performance up. I think that we have a good chance for the rest of the week.”