SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — The South Tahoe girls’ soccer team has had a rough road to start the season with a variety of issues including smoke, evacuations and COVID cases with other teams, but still are unbeaten through four games.

The Vikings were limited to indoor practice early on due to the Caldor Fire sending smoke into Tahoe, and then later when the blaze entered the basin and forced everybody to flee their homes.

They missed their first four games due to being evacuated and missed three weeks of practice, after practicing mostly indoors prior.

South Tahoe began the season against North Tahoe on Sept. 15 at home and came away with a 1-0 win.

The next couple of games were scheduled to be a long, overnight road trip against Elko and Spring Creek.

Head coach Aaron Moore said that literally the day before the trip, Elko had to cancel due to COVID issues. So the Vikings called Lowry, a school that is on the way to Spring Creek, and asked if they wanted a game on Friday, Sept. 17. The Buckaroos agreed and the Vikings went in and earned a 6-1 victory.

Afterwards, the bus continued into Spring Creek and arrived at about 10 p.m. While on the way after Lowry, Spring Creek officials called and said the junior varsity team had COVID issues and had to cancel.

The varsity played the only game on Saturday, Sept. 18 and came away with a scoreless tie.

“The varsity had been struggling to get the offense going, but we finally got on track against Hug,” Moore said.

The Vikings played Hug on Thursday, Sept. 23, and hammered them 9-1 with the game ending by the mercy rule after 60 of the scheduled 90 minutes.

The Vikings jumped out with four goals in the first half and then added five in the first 25 minutes of the second, including a hat trick by Anjelina Maltase, who added another goal in the first half, to win 9-1 in Reno.

“The offense got rolling and put pressure on the defense,” Moore said.

The Vikings had another game scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 25, at home, but after waiting a few hours for air quality to improve due to smoky conditions, the game was postponed and is in the works to be rescheduled.

“The air quality index was at about 162 and we waited for three hours and it never dropped below 158 and we finally had to postpone,” Moore said.

In the 9-1 victory, Maltase scored her first four goals of the season.

She has been a goal scorer since first stepping onto the South Tahoe campus as a freshman. She has 44 career goals in 63 games played and also has 31 assists.

Maltase scored 14 goals her freshman year, 18 in her sophomore season, eight in eight games in a COVID-shortened season last year and has four in two games as a senior.

The Vikings (3-0-1, 1-0 3A North West League) also received single goals from five others including Mackenzie Nealis, Emmie Fiel, Krystyna Schembri, Isabel Newberry and Olivia Kwachak Hall.

Jenna Pevenage assisted on three goals, Nealis had two assists and Marley Befu, Kwachak Hall, Schembri and Ella Bickert each assisted on goals.

The Vikings have scored 16 goals while allowing just two in four games so far this season.

South Tahoe are scheduled to play Wooster on Thursday afternoon in Reno and will play at rival Truckee at 4 p.m. Saturday.