Palmer girls soccer downs Widefield to get first league win

COLORADO SPRINGS – A quick start the season had fizzled out at the Palmer Terrors badly needed a spark to get back to winning. Sofia Bermudez was happy to oblige.

She scored the first three goals of the game to lift the Terrors to a 4-1 win over Widefield which ended a five-game losing streak and also got them their first Colorado Springs Metro South League win of the year.

“This is huge,” Palmer coach Tarah Patterson said. “Our first two games we came out strong and won but since then we’ve gone into a lull where we hadn’t found the back of the net or won a game in five games. It’s good to have the girls in high spirits again.”

And they got there fairly quickly. Bermudez buried her first shot just over three minutes into the game to put the Terrors (3-5 overall, 1-1 CSML South) on the board.

She added another goal about 15 minutes later which gave Palmer some breathing room and allowed them to settle into their game for the remaining 60 minutes of the game.

She connected on her third goal four minutes into the second half to complete her hat trick.

“I was happy about it,” Bermudez said. “When you’re up 3-0, it’s hard to score three goals if you’re the other team. It gets us closer to the win.”

Slowing down the Gladiators (4-5, 0-2) was the other part of that equation. Freshman Autumn Ibarra has found a knack for scoring goals as she puts about 1.4 in the net per game. With the Terrors building an early lead, it was crucial to not let Ibarra close the gap.

The task of slowing her down went to sophomore Sarah Paz who did an admirable job of marking her for the entire game.

Ibarra had some decent looks and even fired off a couple shots but they were stopped by keeper Morgan Hunsinger.

“I had seen some of their stats and saw that she has scored a lot of their goals,” Patterson said. “To maintain her was a really good thing from our defensive side.”

It was a task that Paz took on with a pride.

“I think I did my job well today,” she said.

The Terrors added to the lead when Kodie Hannula scored in the 53^rd minute to push the lead to 4-0, all but assuring Palmer the win.

For all the chances the Gladiators had to put the ball in the net, the only time they converted was in the final minute of the game. Lily Eutsler was the one to finally get a shot by Hunsinger and get Widefield on the board. Hunsinger had turned away five shots on the day before that one got by her.

The Gladiators are back on the field on Tuesday as they take on Woodland Park at CA Foster Stadium. The Terrors are also in action on Tuesday, but they’ll hit the road for a league game against Canon City.