On Dec. 4, the varsity girls’ soccer team toppled over the San Marin Mustangs in a 7-0 victory. The cold weather and rain were not enough to stop Redwood from coming away with this shutout. After a tough loss to Marin Academy on Dec. 1, junior Caroline O’Donnell and her teammates looked to bounce back strong.
“That loss was tough, but we learned about how each other played after not playing together for a while,” O’Donnell said. “We finally gained some chemistry again.”
For the first 35 minutes, Redwood and San Marin both remained scoreless. A couple shots were taken from San Marin’s offense, however nothing was able to fly past senior goalie Paige Barta. In the 39th minute, Redwood put one on the board. Senior Liliana Morales crossed it in the box for an easy finish from sophomore Sarah Farese. Redwood’s momentum then shifted, and just four minutes later, senior Maya Greenholz got past her defender and perfectly placed a shot to the bottom left of the net. Redwood went into halftime up 2-0.

Head coach Ivan Bandov was able to help the girls adapt to the Mustang defense.
“Once we figured out how to break [their defense] down, we were getting the ball behind the defense and giving our forwards tons of shots,” Bandov said.
When the second half started, so did the rain; however, this did not stop Greenholz and the Giants. Greenholz went on to score two more goals — one off of an assist from senior Ruby Churton and one off of a penalty kick.

Seventy-five minutes into the game, junior Dakota Ledesma assisted sophomore Evelyn Spiegel as she added another tally to Redwood’s dominance, making the score 5-0.
“I saw [Spiegel] on the free kick and tried to bend it to her in the middle. She saw an opening and got it past the goalie,” Ledesma said.
Clearly, Redwood’s offense was on a roll after strategizing based on the Mustang defense.

“We started timing our runs better and getting better looks for shots. They played a high defensive line, and we were able to get by it,” Ledesma said.
Just five minutes later, Farese put her second goal in the back of the net after dribbling down the line and taking a sharp cut inside for an excellent finish outside the box.
“Once our offense got going, we were hard to stop, and our bench kept the energy high despite the rain,” O’Donnell said.
Senior Katie Nogueiro capped things off with one last goal, finishing the game with an impressive 7-0 victory. Redwood takes on Ukiah as well as Tamalpais this week and has high hopes forthe season to come. Coach Bandov has set high expectations for this year’s team and thinks they are capable of achieving them.

“We want to get to the [Marin County Athletic League] championships and ultimately win it,” Bandov said.