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By Alison Goldenstein –

The Lincoln High School Girls Varsity Soccer Team made quite the improvements in their 2014-2015 season. The team may not have had a winning season, but they did nearly double their wins from last season. Coached by head coach Duane Johnson in his third year at LHS, and assisted by Amy Cariotto, the team had four wins and mercy ruled in only four games.

Mercy ruling in a soccer game occurs when a team is 10 points ahead of their opponent at any given time. When this happens, the game is over and declared “Mercy Ruled”, no matter how much time is left in the game. Mercy ruling can happen before second half even approaches, which was an experience the Girls Varsity Soccer Team knew all too well in the past. However, this season the team mercy ruled in only four games, all in the second half of each game after a fighting first half.

“Freshman and Sophomore year we would get mercy ruled by half time” senior Marissa Maughan said who has played on the varsity team for all of her four years at Lincoln High. “North Platte or Kearney, because we got mercy ruled by them, or Lincoln East because we got mercy ruled by them too” was senior Raven Williams response when asked who her toughest opponents of the season were. The team lost three key players at the conclusion of the season, seniors Marissa Maughan, Lia Ortiz and Raven Williams who played their hardest in their last season of high school soccer. Ortiz suffered from a concussion for more than half of the season, but was proud of the games she was able to play in.

“We did pretty well, better than we thought we would,” Coach Amy Cariotto said in regards to the Heartland Athletic Conference (HAC) Tournament. The girls concluded their season 4 and 11, very proudly due to the improvements they were able to make since last season. Looking forward to next year, the team plans to focus on what to improve upon even more, with a goal of increasing the “W’s” and even further decreasing the mercy rulings.