Thanks to a brace from forward Alison Jones (above), the Mission Bay girls soccer team defeated Scripps Ranch 2-0 on Wednesday evening to take the top position in the Eastern League standings. This was the second meeting between both teams after settling for a scoreless draw on Jan. 10 at Mission Bay.
“It was a hard-fought win against a really tough team,” said Mission Bay head coach Jorge Palacios. “Our team did a good job of staying in the moment and showing resilience.”
The victory gives the Bucs a 3-0-1 record in league play and 11-1-1 overall while Scripps Ranch falls to 3-1-1 in league (9-3-4 overall) and had its 11-game undefeated streak snapped.
“I thought we played well,” said Scripps Ranch head coach Tom Crane. “That’s just the way the ball bounces sometimes.”
Mission Bay has a four-match winning streak and controls its destiny when it comes to finishing with the Eastern League regular season title. Out of the four games left on the schedule, three of them will be rematches except for the home meeting versus Point Loma on Feb. 3. The Bucs outscored the remaining three opponents by a combined 9-0 scoreline, which includes a 2-0 victory over San Diego High on Jan. 24 with both teams playing each other in the regular season finale on Feb. 12.
“There’s still a lot of soccer left to be played,” Palacios added.
The lone defeat that Mission Bay suffered came in a 1-0 nail-biter against El Capitan on Jan. 13, which is also the only goal given up by the Bucs this season. The largest victory came on Dec. 16 in a 10-0 rout of Hoover.
Photo by Steve Sidell
