Every team at FHC strives to beat one team no matter the sport: East Grand Rapids. The Lady Ranger soccer team had the opportunity to do so, but the game didn’t quite go the way they wanted.

The first half didn’t see much action as the girls remained at a deadlock into halftime. However, the game didn’t remain scoreless for long as the Pioneers took the lead with two goals fairly early in the first half. Later on, the Rangers were eventually able to cut the Pioneer lead in half thanks to a goal from junior Haley Ward; however, this goal came too late and the girls lost to EGR 2-1.

“We struggled to come out with intensity right from the start,” said Haley Ward. “We picked it up in the second half especially after we scored our goal, and felt like we were really back in the game, but there were only 15 minutes left after our goal and it was far too late to really start picking up the energy.”

Not only did the girls’ intensity affect their play, but the weather also played a big factor in the game. Not only did the girls have to play in sub-40-degree weather, but they also had to deal with mixed precipitation. This caused the ball to skip a bit more and made it harder to control the ball which made it tough for the girls to find and connect passes.

“The snow really affected the way the ball rolled which threw us off a bit because we weren’t used to it,” said Josie Crosse.

This loss was a gut punch for the girls, no one wanted anything but to win. Not only was it a big rivalry match-up, but there were also other implications that the game had as well as some history between the two teams.

When asked about the game, Haley said, “This was such a tough loss because it was a conference game and mattered for our rankings. It was a super close match but we, unfortunately, fell short. We also ended EGR’s season last year and knew they would be out to get us. We wanted to show them up again but it just wasn’t our day.”

Once again the Rangers find themselves in a quick turnaround as they only have a day break between their game on Monday and their upcoming game against Northview on Wednesday. This short amount of time for the team to reflect makes it tough for the team to rebound after a rough loss.

When asked about how they will overcome this loss, senior Frankie Sutton said, “To bounce back from this game we just need to keep working and hold our heads high. Every team is hungry to beat us because we were state champions last year but our mentality has moved on from last year and if we want to dominate we have to keep working hard on and off the field and start from scratch after every game.”

The girls’ next game will be away at Northview, on Wednesday, April 19, at 6:45.