Radford’s varsity girls soccer team ended the regular season with a 3-6-1 (wins-losses-ties) and 4-7-1 (postseason) record, and took second place in the OIA Division II Championship game.

Players admit that they felt a bit of disconnect at the beginning of the season.

“We worked towards improving this by setting goals individually and as a team. This helped to create a bond with the team,” varsity head coach Sheri Uyematsu said.

As a result, the team set the goal of winning the OIA Division II Championship. The team reached the championship game but failed to obtain their goal with a loss against Kailua with a score of 1-2.

“I am proud to say that even though we didn’t win the Division II Championship title, we absolutely tried our best,” Hannah Heffelfinger (12) said.

Despite the loss, the players kept their spirits up.

“Although they fell short, it was a great game and the team took it like they were champions,” Coach Uyematsu said.

However, despite the heartbreaking loss, the girls kept looking at the positives of the season.

“The girls on this team bring such a positive atmosphere to the field, that they make a hard loss like that come and go with a breeze,” Heffelfinger said.

For a lot of the girls this season was about having fun and making friendships.

Heffelfinger said, “Every game day, we knew that whether it be a hard team to compete against or not, we’d have a blast playing together.”

It has also been a positive experience this season for the coaches. One of the girls soccer coaches’ biggest goals for each season is to make sure the girls take away positive lessons from their experience playing soccer at Radford.

Coach Uyematsu said, “As a coach, it is not about the wins or scores, but about what each player learns from this time and how it brings success to their lives.”

Varsity girls soccer team also made it to the states tournament . Although they lost in the first round and placed 8th in states the players once again chose to focus on the positives and played their last game to have fun and not worry about the score.

Though the team fell short of their season’s goal, they had an overall positive and enjoyable season.