Youthful Palo Verde girls soccer team continues to shine

The dominant team in most leagues combines youth with veteran experience.

Palo Verde’s girls soccer team can’t count as much on the latter.

The unbeaten Panthers don’t have a single senior on their 17-player squad, but Thursday’s 2-0 win over visiting Shadow Ridge gave them a 19-0 shutout streak over five games.

Kainoa Becker struck first on a pass from Lauren Kaskie, and Sila Tuiofea tallied a goal just a few minutes later.

Palo Verde (5-0-1, 3-0-0 Northwest League) outshot the Mustangs 12-9, with five Shadow Ridge shots taken in the final 20 minutes.

“(Tuiofea is) a feisty player. She will give you her all,” Palo Verde coach Frank Messina said. “Sometimes you’ve got to tell her to calm down a little bit; she’s a little overanxious at times.

“I think she tries too hard sometimes trying to put them in the net. Last year, she started out a little slow but had 17 goals as a freshman. I think she’s trying to get back there this year… She’s only a sophomore.”

The Panthers boast seven juniors on their team, with six sophomores and four freshmen.

“I’m confident in these guys this year,” Messina said. “I think they’re going to go pretty far in terms of what they can do. I don’t doubt us making the playoffs at all; it’s just about how far we can go, how deep we can get.

“I have all the confidence in them.”

Part of that confidence comes from goalkeeper Stacie Gubler, whose eight-save shutout of the Mustangs was her fourth of the season.

“We have a good team this year,” she said. “It’s not really me getting the shutouts. It’s the defenders; they’re really good. I think we’re gonna go all the way this year.”

Defender Tatiana Pagan leads a back line made up of three juniors and sophomore Brianna Stutz.

“(Pagan is) an incredible player,” Messina said. “She takes on girls that are twice her size and doesn’t think twice about it. But the entire defense works together as a team. The cohesiveness is starting to come together.

“There are also a few freshmen that I’ve played in that back line that I feel just as comfortable when their back there. We have one that played a big role against Bishop Gorman (in a 1-0 win). … We’ve been knocked out two years in a row by Gorman, so beating them this year was a big accomplishment. We enjoyed that, and we were ready to play them.”

Perhaps the biggest advantage the Panthers have is trust.

“For your teammates, they have to be able to trust that you’ll be back there and support them if they make a mistake,” Gubler said. “I think they have that trust. They know that if they make a mistake, I’ll be back there to help them out.”

With that trust, Palo Verde hopes to reclaim its place atop the Northwest League — and hopefully more, Messina says.

“The girls are definitely hungry in terms of trying to get back to the playoffs this year and do actually do something,” he said. “We’ve been there the last two years, and I think they’re feeling it early in the season and trying to get back there.”