By Cathy Wang | Staff Writer

On Thursday, Dec. 18, Irvington’s varsity girls’ soccer team lost to Kennedy with a score of 0-2 at TAK stadium. This was an emotional game for Irvington, as this was the first meeting against their former coach Michelle Chitwood. Senior center midfielder Kirsten Wong said, “The game didn’t go as we expected. We were playing our old coach, and we really wanted to win, but things didn’t work out.”

During the first half, the Kennedy scored within the first fifteen minutes. “I was a little disappointed when they scored, but we still fought back.” freshman forward Kimiya Ganjooi said. Irvington was actually in control of the ball and played offensively on the Kennedy’s side of the field most of the time with many opportunities to score; however, the girls could not break through.

In the third quarter, Kennedy was in possession of the ball for most of the time. Then Irvington committed a foul close to its own goal. “[Because] we were scrambling to keep them from scoring, one of [our] defenders got caught off guard and one of their forwards got tripped. It was unfortunate.” said junior center midfielder Samiksha Alur. The Kennedy player then scored on a penalty shot that the Irvington goalie could not block.

There was no clear superiority in ball handling in the last quarter. With numerous interceptions and missed passes, the ball would often change possession between Irvington and Kennedy. “We really need to work on possession as a team and communication.” said Alur. “We just lost the ball a lot and didn’t have a lot of shots on goal.” Both teams came close to scoring several times, but the final score remained 0-2, Kennedy. “[I’m] looking forward to better teamwork. We got off to a bad start, but hopefully we can grow as a team and win some games!” Wong said.