It’s been 10 years since the Scotts Valley High girls’ soccer team won a Santa Cruz Coast Athletic League championship. And the last time the Falcons won a Central Coast Section title was a Division III championship victory against Woodside Priory School of Portola Valley during the 2007-08 season.
Naiya Samios isn’t trying to dismiss the past. But she’s been on a mission this season to write some history of her own by trying to turn the program back into a winning one.
The standout junior forward scored a pair of goals in Tuesday night’s 3-0 win against Harbor High in SCCAL play, adding to her team-leading 10 goals this season.
The first goal came on a breakaway as she sped past her defender and took a shot from about 25 yards out for the score.
“We got some good passes in this game but that was a quick breakaway moment where you kind of take the shot,” Samios said. “A lot of them didn’t go in but that was one of the ones that did.”
Five minutes later, Samios was set up with a 30-yard free kick that she sent to the back of the net, and sophomore Taylor Rapiz scored her fifth goal of the season to gave Scotts Valley a 3-0 lead going into halftime.
Another top contributor this season has been freshman Lia Lock, who has three goals and three assists for Scotts Valley.
Yet, it hasn’t been a smooth flight for Samios, who has a team-high five assists, and the Falcons. They got off to a bumpy start by going 1-4-1 in preseason play.
That was just before they had their SCCAL opener against Soquel High on Jan. 6 postponed due to Covid-19 protocols, which forced the Falcons to sit out for two weeks.
“Honestly, it got us more excited for the games,” Samios said. “Even though we didn’t get to practice, some of us were still training outside … but obviously Covid is not fun for any of us.”
Scotts Valley showed signs of rust when it returned to league play with losses to Santa Cruz and then Aptos high schools by a combined score of 13-0.
However, there was no quit in this young and hungry team. They discovered what was missing and they went on to win four league games in a row.
“At the beginning of the season maybe we just didn’t take the shots, but we started taking more and more,” Samios said. “We’ve gotten opportunities, obviously some of them are going to go in and some of them won’t.”
Scotts Valley coach Taylor Raymond said being out for two weeks was a challenge because the players were away from the ball for a long period.
She addressed the team by telling them to use this as motivation and to be hungrier than ever when it came time to return to practice. Since then, she’s noticed that they’ve become a much tighter group.
“It felt like before it was really separate and now you can see that the hard work in practice is being shown throughout the whole game,” she said. “It’s coming together, which is super nice.”
Starting goalie Paige Bariteau has been out since mid-December and played in just two games this season.
The first-year coach mentioned that juniors Morgan Lipman and Gianna Mandujano have done an incredible job of stepping into that role.
Lipman and Mandujano have a combined four clean sheets this season, including a 6-0 win against Harbor High in league play on Feb. 1.
Scott Valley had its winning streak snapped after a 6-0 loss to Aptos on Feb. 3. But seniors Olivia Kang, Addy Hulme, Lexie Trefethen, Ella McHenry, Mari Stone and Sami Buer, along with junior defensive midfielder Alex Teves made sure they’d bounced back with Tuesday’s win against Harbor to improve to 5-3-0 in league play.
“There’s been a lot of good games, a lot of blowouts both ways,” Samios said. “With Harbor, every year it’s kind of neck and neck but this season beating them twice is pretty big for us.”
They currently sit in third place in the SCCAL standings, which Samios said is pretty impressive for Scotts Valley.
“We’re stepping it up every year,” she said.
They have two games remaining, starting with Senior Night against Soquel on Thursday. That’ll be followed by a match at league-leading Santa Cruz on Feb. 15 at 5pm.
“I always tell them it’s a really big learning experience,” Raymond said about playing within the SCCAL. “Santa Cruz has always been an amazing team and it’s always a difficult game … It’s where we can start trying to improve the things that we’ve been working on in practice.”
The Falcons are hoping to qualify for an at-large berth in the CCS postseason. They qualified in the abbreviated 2021 spring season but they were eliminated by Christopher High in the D-III quarterfinals.
Still, the future is bright for Scotts Valley with potential returners in sophomore Lauren Bariteau along with freshmen Ashley Haver, Jordan Ericson and Skylar Dufour.
Let’s not forget the trio of JV players—Annie Gowing, Chloe Woelfel and Dillon Fiorita—that was called up during this season and could have an impact the following year.
“We’ve improved a lot, we’ve been practicing every day that we don’t have games and it’s been going good,” Samios said. “It’s a pretty well-mixed team and we’re getting good. I think next year we’re going to be especially good, too.”
