When the coaches of the girls soccer team walked on the field they didn’t expect to see the plethora of students on the field.
Nearly 50 girls tried out for the team, which is the most players the girls have had on the team since the early 2000s.
With 48 girls on the team, coaches struggle to find places for all of them. That’s why they have introduced a fresh/soph team.
“Having a fresh/soph team will help develop the kids because today JV and varsity have a game and fresh/soph will stay back and practice instead of just sitting and watching,” Head Girls Soccer Coach Nick Namio said.
With the new fresh/soph team new players will have more opportunities to get better and hopefully start playing at higher levels.
The fresh/soph team will play six games this year. The coaches say that playing more games will help develop the newer players even more.
Namio said that in the last few years kids could just show up and get thrown right into a game.
That is not the case this year. This year, the girls have to beat someone out of a spot to play in a game and make the environment more competitive. It also makes the girls work harder so they can get better.
When it comes to developing his athletes, Namio said, new soccer players, who have never played soccer before, take their freshman year to focus on basic skills. Then, as sophomores, they start to use tactics and, hopefully, by junior year, if they are athletic enough, they can jump into the competitive games.
Every day the practices are “fluid” and girls move up and move down through the ranks and “just because you are on varsity today doesn’t mean you’ll be on varsity tomorrow when they are ready they are ready,” Namio said.
Namio is the most excited about the fact that the team is really young and has more experienced players this year.
He is also looking forward to hopefully more possessions and a little less focus on defense.
Namio also said they don’t have a leading scorer, so goals can come from anywhere and they don’t have someone that other schools’ defense can “target” or defend harder than the other girls.
The first girls fresh/soph game is March 31st.
