Vals soccer team steadily improves through season

The Bigfork girls soccer team continues to pool together their strength and improve through the first half of the season’s losses and played their best game yet against a powerful Whitefish team.

Last Thursday’s score ended with the Vals on the losing side of a 4-0 score, but head coach Charlie Appleby said the girls came out strong in the first half, holding the Bulldogs to a 1-0 score at the half.

“They came out with energy and fought hard in the first half,” Appleby said.

Goalkeeper Jazzmyn Musser came up big for the Vals yet again, keeping the Bulldogs’ shooters at bay for most of the game. Defensively Bigfork held solid except for a few breakdowns, applying enough pressure on Whitefish strikers to keep shots high and wide. Whitefish had 43 shots on goal, Musser made 11 solid saves.

On the attacking end, Bigfork pushed past Whitefish’s midfield line four times in the first half, and ended the game with four shots on goal and a corner kick.

“Whitefish, as always, is a great deep team,” Appleby said “I think that we played them tougher than we usually do.”

Appleby said he thinks his girls have a good chance of beating teams in the second half of the season if they continue to improve, especially as players who were injured over the last couple of weeks come back to the field.

“I think a lot of the girls are looking forward to those match-ups,” Appleby said. “Hoping for a better result.”

Next up for the Vals was Columbia Falls on Tuesday afternoon.

The game played out as the Eagle went to print. On Thursday the girls team heads to Libby for an away game against the Loggers.