By Audrey Dodgen/Staff Writer

The El Reno High School girls soccer team fell 2-1 to Woodward on Tuesday.

The Indians took three shots on goal, two by K’risa Hawkins and one by Shawndra Ward, who scored for the Indians.

Keeper Sarah Apple had 15 saves on the night.

“The girls who are coming to practice are working the schemes in games that we practice on. If every girl who was out on the field last night had been at practice two or three days before, I feel confident we would have won that game,” coach Ray Apple said.

Because of the team’s youth, they need time in practice to work on fundamentals, he said.

“Because we don’t have the depth of talent of our boys team, we have to have girls at practice learning the schemes. We can’t afford not to be at practice,” he said.

The squad continues to struggle early in their games, but finish strong.

“That’s just another sign of us being very young. When they start out a game, it’s a new opponent and they are unsure of themselves. It takes them a little while to convince themselves that they can do it,” he said.

“They aren’t accustomed to coming out with their game faces on. The only thing that will help that is more playing time.”

Despite the loss, Apple said he was not disappointed in his team’s play.

“We really came out strong against Capitol Hill and we showed if we get on top we can shut you down. Woodward is a much better team than Capitol Hill, and in the later part of the game, we still managed to shut them down. Unfortunately, we lost the toss and we weren’t able to use the wind to our advantage like we were able to against Capitol Hill,” he said.

“But I’m not disappointed in the way we played. I was disappointed Monday with the number of girls we had at practice.”