We. Are. Willis. This is what goes through team members’ minds before the game. For some players of the girls’ soccer team, this is more than an idea. It is what helps them succeed and strive for improvement.

Everyone has a certain feeling or a kind of emotion that courses through their veins. For freshman Rosalyn Gutierrez this happens more often than others. 

“I often get nervous in waves,” Gutierrez said. “I am mostly calm throughout the day, even before the game I am calm, but when I get onto the field I feel passion, ambition, and love. I always go in as aggressive as possible.”

Preparations are amazing before games. It can get the mood right and sets everything up. 

“Before a game, I hype myself up,” freshman Vivienne McConnell-Tasch said. “I always have everything prepared. I also try to hype up other people even though I am not really good at it.”

Everything has a purpose, like how everyone on a team has their role. Every role comes with great responsibility, and all those positions have to be filled in order for the team to work together. 

“I’m a midfielder, usually the left center,” Gutierrez said.“I’m there because I told Coach P that I’m okay with wherever she needs me to be.”

Winning, losing and tying are all a part of the game. It’s what happens after the game that’s important for team chemistry. Whether it’s a talk from the coach or it’s just a teammate’s reflection over what happened during the game. 

“At the end of the game I usually am thinking about what I can work on,” McConnell-Tasch said. “I often focus a lot on what I messed up on.”

The players and coaches use each game and practice as a learning opportunity. They learn from losses and celebrate and learn from wins.

“We’ve only won once, but after that game we were so pumped,“  Gutierrez said.“We talked about the highlights of our game and what we can learn off of it for the next one. If we lose a game we all kind of self-reflect over it, and then we all talk about what we can do better next time.”

Now going off of what happens when the game is done everyone has those brief moments where they self-reflect on what happened. They have a time where they can go over the game and learn from their mistakes and their achievements. 

“Typically, I just review how hard I played,” Gutierrez said. “I make sure to show my enthusiasm, and I make sure that I play my heart and leave it all  out on the field.“ Gutierrez said.