By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
AMITY, Ore.– Haley Miersma’s confidence has been slowly coming back after suffering an ankle injury that sidelined her for the season-opening game against Banks a month ago.
“That was a little hard. But it brought me a little motivation in getting back into it. It was a little slow at first, but I kept going and kept pushing, my teammates supporting me and coaches supporting me and got my groove back,” said Miersma.
Tuesday’s game saw Miersma score three goals in the Warriors 9-1 victory over Western Christian. All ten goals came in the first forty minutes as the game ended at the halftime break due to the mercy rule.
Of those nine Amity goals, four came within the first nine minutes of the game and seven came within the first 19 minutes of the game as the Warriors came out firing on all cylinders and finishing their opportunities on the offensive side of the pitch.
“Getting a good lead at the beginning, it really helps to keep your team’s motivation up and keep them going strong. You have that lead and have all the energy from scoring goals with your team,” Miersma said.
The Pioneers got on the board in the closing moments of the half, thanks to a PK goal by Lucy Kearns that got the upstart Western Christian squad on the board before the game ended. A good learning experience for the young team, they’re hoping to build upon it moving further into 3A/2A/1A Special District 2 play.
“This helped us a lot, the season has been going pretty good so far for us and so I think this helped us get passes correctly, get our work in and run faster because those girls are pretty fast and really good,” starts Kearns. “I think that really helped us overall with all of our soccer skills and stuff like that.”
Amity will head to play Gervais/Kennedy on Thursday, going into Tuesday’s game with Blanchet. The Pios head to play Taft on Thursday before hosting Sheridan/Willamina on Monday.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
