 | | | Photo Gint Federas | | | | | | On April 10, in a game looked forward to all season by both Miramonte and Acalanes, Miramonte came out on top 8-6, stopping the Acalanes winning streak at 59 games.
Miramonte coach Lance Morrison appreciated the quality of the win but was not going to allow the team to bask too long in it: "Any time you get to beat a team that snaps a winning streak as impressive as Acalanes' was, you're going to be pretty happy and proud. You can't say enough good things about Acalanes, their coaching staff and program. We celebrated and then we quickly changed our eyes towards our next opponent."
Acalanes head coach Misha Buchel always knew that the streak would end at some point and shared that from the beginning of the year with the team: "We talked about the possibility of losing in advance. We once broke another team's long-term winning streak, and they were devastated by the loss. I thought no team should have this expectation based on the cycle of sports. We did not want the players to think of the season as a failure if we were to lose a game. That's not healthy."
For Morrison, it was a team victory and some individual standouts. "All the credit goes to the girls," Morrison said. "We played a lot of people and their ability to play together is what really got the job done. Lindsay (Lucas) had a really good game in the goal and Fiona (Young) had an outstanding game and was really the heartbeat of our play."
Buchel and the players took the loss in stride. "The streak was a lot of fun, but we learned from it and take the mistakes that we made as individuals, coaches and as a team and try to improve next time. We play sports for these games because they're so much fun and you don't know what's going to happen and that was the message we gave the team."
Message received. The next day Acalanes began a new streak defeating Davis and Miramonte continued their own streak defeating San Ramon Valley 13-2.
The teams will meet again on May 19 at Miramonte. |
Lamorinda Weekly, Moraga CA