By Mike Blake
The Kern Valley Broncs girls soccer team closed out their regular season with an 11-5-1 record and were 10-3-1 in High Desert League play. The CIF Central Section Division VI playoffs await, as both scheduled games for last week were cancelled – February 6 vs. Bishop and February 8 at Frazier Mountain.
What’s next? The Lady Broncs geared up for the Girls CIFSC Division VI Soccer playoffs. Their season was considered and Kern Valley was awarded a No.1 seed. They were scheduled to host No. 16 Wonderful College Prep Academy Delano (7-12-3) at home on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. Details and results were unavailable at press time. The winner will play the winner of the No. 8 Strathmore-No.9 California City match. The round two game is scheduled for Thursday, February 15 at 3:30 p.m. Caruthers is seeded No. 2, McFarland is No. 3, Woodlake is No. 4 and HDL’s Rosamond is at No. 10.
Wonderful has scored 57 goals and has allowed 60, while Kern Valley has put 48 goals in the net and has allowed only 22. Kern Valley is ranked 12th in the Central Section (all divisions combined) and Wonderful has a No. 18 ranking.
Leading the Lady Broncs in production during the regular season was junior Aspen Hacker, who accounted for 40% of Kern Valley’s scoring. Hacker scored 18 goals, with junior Alex Armes good for second with seven goals. In all, 12 Lady Broncs found the net, with freshman Scarlett Weber tallying four, and seniors Kayley Sietsma and Alaina Check knocking in three each to rank number 3-5 on the score sheet. Leading the team in assists was Armes with 14 helpers. Sietsma was second with five assists and Kassandra Guarneros set up three goals. In goal, Weber and junior Izzy Mosqueda split goaltending chores, and each has a strong season between the pipes.
Kern Valley soccer coach Paul Armes said the team played with energy and as a team all year. “The playoffs will be tough, but the team has stepped up all year when they needed to and got inspired play from each position,” said Coach Armes. Defense wins games and if we play tight “D” and continue to put shots into the net, there is no reason that we can’t put up a good playoff run.”
