The PACA Sports Season Begins with Varsity Soccer Games

Luisa Almeida, the PACA varsity goalie observes the girls playing against the Chapel Trojans. [by Enzo Viccari]

by Valentina Porto

The PACA sports season for the 2025-2026 school year officially kicked off on Tuesday, August 19 with two Varsity soccer games. The girls started to prepare for their game at 6:30 pm, while the boys played.

After losing four starters due to graduation last year, the girls’ varsity team had to start this year from scratch, adapting with an almost entirely new group. This would have been a major setback, if not for a recent change in the junior varsity age rules, which lowered the maximum age of players from under 15 to under 14. What seemed like a disadvantage, ended up being a huge opportunity for younger girls to step up and prove themselves on the varsity team.

A sophomore from the girls’ soccer team that spent three years on the junior varsity team and has also been the goalie for the Warriors for those three seasons.

“The new changes after the seniors left have been challenging,” said Sophomore Luisa Almeida, the goalie for the team. “Our team is pretty young, but I believe that the more games we play, the more the team will slowly return to normal.”

As expected, the team on the field was a mixture of high school students with nearly half of them being freshman. The boys game finished later than expected causing a bit of delay in the girls’ game. They had their usual 15 minutes of warmup which ended a few minutes before 7:00 pm, marking the beginning of their first game of the season. 

The Warriors seemed to have dominated the game during the first few minutes of the first half. However, after an unexpected error from the PACA defense, the first goal was made by Chapel about 15 minutes into the game.  Ten minutes later, Lilah Denham (G12) found an opportunity to make a goal and tie the game 5 minutes before the interval. The first half continued with lots of action up and down the field, but no goals were made. It appeared to end with the score still tied 1:1. 

In the final seconds, a Chapel striker found their advantage, shot toward the center of the net and the ball passed over the goalie’s hands without her being able to stop it. The first half ended with the disappointing 2:1 score for Chapel.

The second half began at 7:45pm with a change of tactics in the opposing team. Chapel slightly altered their teams` strategy and players, causing PACA players to struggle in the beginning of the second half. The first fifteen minutes were slow with no goals made.

PACA ladies began to press their advantage which resulted in Rafaela Miglio (G9) scoring a beautiful left foot goal. The girls seemed to pick up their energy and not so long after Anita Silva (G10) scored a foul goal, putting PACA ahead of Chapel with 3:2. The intensity of the game continued though no more goals were made by either team. A tense moment came when our right back got injured. She was carried off the field and the coach hurriedly made changes to compensate for her leave. 

The game continued with a disadvantage for the Warriors. Due to the time wasted in previous moments in the game, there was a 4 minute additional time that seemed to last forever. Both teams were exhausted but were giving their all. 

After a lot of distress, the game ended with the PACA win of 3:2 and our goalie, Luisa Almeida, was given the green card. 

After the match, an indispensable defense player from the PACA team displayed her thoughts on the game and her team’s performance.

 “Considering the fact that we only had two weeks of training, I believe that we did pretty well overall,” said Rebeca Bernabe.

The season had a great start where the girls’ victory made up for the boys’ loss.

Lilah Denham, closes the gap to reach her opponent with the ball. [Dr. Cristina Meier]