The Lady Cavalier Soccer team finished their regular season winter campaign on Tuesday, Jan. 14, with a thrilling 3-2 victory against Southwest High. After what seemed like an intensive week of work on the field, the Lady Cavaliers took on Ferguson High  School on Jan. 21 in the Greater Miami Athletic Conference (GMAC) quarter-final, a tournament that broadens the range of competing schools and includes schools in South Florida for a variety of sports, on Ferguson’s home field.

Unfortunately, despite their hard fight, the Lady Cavaliers lost 1-0. The defense was pushed up too close to the half-way line on the field, allowing Ferguson to counterattack throughout the whole game.

“It was the best game we played all year. We proved that we are capable of competing with any team in the county. In my opinion, we were the better team that day and we even had more opportunities at the goal. We just did not get lucky,” Coach Justin Aguirre said.

When goalie Ayelen Escaurido came out of the goal to get to the ball first, Ferguson’s forward passed a through-ball to her teammate in the goal box who controlled and finished. During a free kick for Ferguson outside of the goal box, a forward headed the ball into the goal, but it did not count due to a foul call in the goal box against Ferguson.

The Lady Cavaliers had multiple close shots in the box. At one point, senior forward Luana Gomez headed the ball into the goal, where it was on the edge of going in, but a defender on the Ferguson team knocked it out at the last second.

Gables, for the most part, handed Ferguson a pretty even game, and one mistake led to the end of GMAC competitions for the girls. Fortunately, the Gables defensive line was able to hold them off for the rest of the game. While further up, the forwards were creating great plays and options for goals, but they were not able to finish the plays.

“We gave Ferguson a good game and have improved a lot since the last time we played them,” sophomore Mia Calderon said.

The Lady Cavaliers have a free schedule for that week and starting the week of Monday, Jan. 27, they will have practice daily to prepare them for the upcoming district championship competition. Their next game will take place on Monday, Feb. 3, to initiate the district tournament.