With injuries to a few key players at the end of the season, the Cosumnes River College women’s soccer team finished on the wrong foot, with three straight losses in November.

But they head in to the playoffs ranked sixth in the Northern Region and third in the Big 8 conference with a 12-7-2 overall record.

“If we stay healthy we have a good chance at being in the final four,” head coach Cesar Plasencia said. “Health is a big deal to us because we aren’t very deep.”

Injuries became a recurring theme for the Hawks this season. Three minutes into their first game, sophomore forward Dani Arellano injured her knee and was forced to miss the rest of the season.

Freshman forward Jordan Moore, who scored 16 goals during the regular season, also injured her knee towards the end of the season but will be ready for playoffs. However, she said that she needs to condition in order to avoid fatigue during games.

“I’m definitely running around more so I won’t get tired.” Moore said. “We’re ready for the postseason but just need to fine tune some things.”

While some injuries force players to miss games, others play through them.

“There are always a lot of ice bags after games,” Moore said.

The Hawks fell off at the end of the regular season because of players missing games and others playing through injuries, Plasencia said.

At the beginning of the season freshman goalkeeper Claudia Lara said the team, which had a core of new freshman players, had “rare” chemistry.

But at some point the chemistry improvements seemed to hit a plateau, Lara said.

“We kind of found each other a little bit more, but I don’t think we really had much improvement on it,” Lara said.

CRC is set to play the Solano College Falcons on Nov. 19. Solano finished the season with a 10-6-4 record. The Hawks defeated the Falcons 5-1 on Sept. 20.

But Plasencia said Solano improved as the season went on and that they are a much better team when they played earlier in the year.

“They’re a good team with a winning record. It will be a much more difficult match,” Plasencia said. “They’re one of the superior programs in northern California.”