Tuesday, March 29th was a great day for West Anchorage High School, that afternoon West took on Bartlett High School in a girls varsity soccer match. This event took place at the Dome and resulted in a 9-2 win for West.

West’s Girls Varsity Coach, Num Tindle, was not present during the time of the game but his substitute coach, Kaleb Kuehn, was. Kuehn was active coach at the time and had wonderful insight into the team’s chemistry. “They all have fun, which is the most important part, and they are really encouraging… hearing them from the sidelines yelling encouragement, it’s great,” said Kuehn. Kuehn has coached varsity for five years and has experience playing soccer since he was three years old.

The performance of the team met Kuehn’s standards because their goal was to play like a team and keep the ball the longest they could, which they accomplished with a lot of effort considering the tenacity of the opposite team.

On the opposite side of the field, Ula Rowe, Bartlett’s girls’ varsity coach, was also encouraging her girls to keep it up and play hard. Rowe has coached at Bartlett for two seasons yet in such a short time she has already formed a strong bond with her girls, “I love them! … We’re very open with each other,” said Rowe.

Rowe has experience playing and coaching soccer. She has coached in Hawaii and played in Nevada at the college level. Although Bartlett lost this match, they were very graceful about their loss. “We only got room for improvement,” said Rowe in a very determined way.

Midfielder Anna Doyle was a great team player who could be heard across the field yelling encouragement and advice to her teammates. Doyle has played soccer for seven years and has enjoyed every one of those years. “We did really well, and worked well as a unit,” said Doyle. Indeed they did work well and played like a true team helping each other score some goals. “It was pretty fun, pretty aggressive and intense,” said Doyle describing the game. Doyle took two shots and both shots made it in one was a penalty and the other one was a normal kick giving her team an edge over Bartlett.

At one point during the second half of the game the coach for West switched up Doyle and sent her to a defensive position then called in a player to place in Doyle’s position. All was well for about five minutes but then the new girl decided it was her turn to hit the ball and came barreling straight into a small Bartlett girl crushing the poor girl and missing the ball completely. The Referee did not call the foul. The match overall was a great game which displayed both prowess and weaknesses of both teams.