The binary nature of sports is easy to get caught up in. It’s a business of wins and losses. When a team loses, the stigma of failure is usually etched into that effort and the team’s only opportunity for rebuttal is the next game.

Without context, Sedona Red Rock High School girls soccer’s season-opening 5-0 loss to Snowflake High School could easily be tossed into that pile. But rather than dwell on a lopsided score, the Scorpions are choosing to rally behind the positives.

“Just getting out for our first game and knowing how it feels to play 80 minutes and play a full-field game is going to help us for our future games,” senior Mikaela Aguilar said.

With just a few practices left before its first game, Sedona still didn’t have anyone to play perhaps the sport’s most important position.

There wasn’t anyone with experience at goalkeeper
on the team following the graduation of last year’s starter, Bella Horton.

Head coach Juan Carlos Aguilar asked for a volunteer
goalie, and the name that stepped up will be familiar to anyone who caught even just a couple of innings of the Scorpions’ softball team this spring.

“I was not going to play soccer,” sophomore Annabelle Cook said. “My best friend, who is my right defender, Jillian Grondin actually got me to play this season, and [Mikaela Aguilar], they kind of recruited me.”

Cook had never played organized soccer in her life.

In her first two practices after she was convinced to join the soccer team, she didn’t have a position. With just three practices to go before the opener against Snowflake, she took her first reps at goalkeeper.

“I said I might as well try [to play goalkeeper],” she said. “I play basketball, I play softball — it has to be similar. I kind of fell in love with it.”

Mikaela Aguilar thought that Cook’s skills as the shortstop on the school’s softball team would translate to being a goalie. Afterall, both positions are molded after the same concept — don’t let that ball get past you at all costs.

Coach Aguilar says he was giving Cook tips even just before kickoff.

And in Cook’s first ever time lacing up soccer cleats and strapping on the goalie gloves, she wasn’t going up against the local AYSO squad. She had the pleasure
of going against the Snowflake Lobos, which just two days prior opened the season with 9 goals against Page High School.

It’s safe to say the Lobos didn’t take it easy on her. With shot after shot making its way through the Scorpion defense in the first half, Cook held her own. She held the Lobos, who scored 38 goals in 12 matches last season, scoreless in the first half despite a seemingly endless barrage of shots on goal.

“First game — first time playing soccer — that was pretty intimidating,” Cook said. “I really enjoyed it and it was really helpful knowing ‘I can do this, I can stop this.’ One of the things that helped me through that first [half] was definitely my teammates. They were my support system, they were my rock. My coach, I would not have gotten through that and had that confidence to go be the starter without them there by me.”

Cook’s play in the first half was enough for coach Aguilar to know that he has his goalie situation figured out for the season.

“There is a word to describe that feeling — peace of mind. We are happy for her,” he said. “She is coachable and fast-learning so I am very happy that she is stepping up for us.”

The second half wasn’t quite as smooth for the Scorpions. Due to what the team called fatigue because of the sheer lack of practice time, they allowed 5 goals in the second half to fall 5-0 in a shutout.

Instead of focusing on the number in the loss column, the team remains positive. For a squad that went winless last season, there isn’t an expectation to come out and dominate on the pitch right away. There is a process to getting to that point and the Scorpions appear to trust it.

“They’re going to go where they want to go. And I’m going to help them get there if they want to get there,” coach Aguilar said. “Everything starts with them — attitude, fitness, all that stuff. … What I told them is this year we are going to set up our realistic goals and we are going to accomplish them.”