Girls Varsity Soccer
November 2, 2018
Who doesn’t love to play and watch soccer? You should attend these home games because the Girls Varsity Soccer team could use your love and support while they play. Go attend the events they hold because the money you donate to the team goes to new equipment for games and training.
The girls current record had a devastating first loss of 0-4, but then had an amazing come back with a win of 6-1. These may just be the first games of their season but the rest of their games have all mostly been nothing but wins for these girls.
So far, the girls are having a great season. They still have two months worth of games left ahead of them including their playoff then off to state.
When questioned, What do you think could be changed to make the girls perform better, Julie Carrington, the head coach, believed that “Having stronger teams to challenge in our division.”
Carrington has a strong team, but we need stronger teams to play. The girls are starting to practice harder than the beginning of the year as playoffs approach. With all their practicing, they’re becoming stronger themselves and need those strong teams to play to help with their improvement. Even though we only have a few more games left of the 2018 season, it’s always better to improve for the new girls who are added to varsity next year.
Star player #8 Makayla Gent said, “ I love the feeling when the crowd is cheering you on as you sprint down the field with the ball.”
All the players on this squad work well with each other and know what their best abilities are.Being on the JV team myself, I’ve seen how well they are and how much better they make each other when playing as a team.
Players like, Kaitlyn Carrington, Kathy Niles, and Vaniah Vitto, are players who have recently graduated. The girls led the team to the state championships last year, in Hawaii, and even left one of the games with a 16-0 win. Even though those girls have graduated, Grace Gundacker, Halie Souza, Kimberly Ramos, and Autumn Chaffee, are all filling those places to take them to the top.
Gundacker said, “Although we lost several skilled seniors last year, the players that are stepping up have really take their role seriously to play their best. Dribbling and ball control are definitely some of the strengths on this team.”
The girls improvement this year has really been put into action. They are practicing and practicing and practicing to improve on their mistakes and to improve their skills. Putting all those skills together make them a better team.
For example, doing some drills like their unique square drill to help with passing and accuracy, or doing some one-on-one to help with their confidence against pressure. These girls are really improving as a team, even with the new freshman playing with them.
Gent said, “We work very well together. We communicate effectively and are good sports,” adding that the girls have more endurance, “ We have more endurance and more accurate passes.”
All of these things that Gent said can relate to being their strong points. With them working well together, communicating, being good sports toward one another, and having more endurance and better passes, make these the strong points within this team.
Coach Carrington said, “Our toughest opponent this year has been Moapa. They are a highly aggressive team that will try and stop our girls from scoring no matter if they injure them.”
That sounds like quite a challenge but from what their coach says about this team, They’ll be able to overcome the toughness of that team and pull through to make them the least toughest opponent. Like a couple of the games they have played, they have been stepped on, goalies have been kicked in the face, and a few have received concussions all from these teams and their aggressiveness.
They have a high possibility on making it to state. The girls have great communication. Seeing them work together and help one another to be better than before, helps them pull through, help one another, and make it to state. They’ve done it once and they’ll do it again this year and many years to follow.
Even Gundacker said, “If our team continues working and playing hard as a team, there’s no doubt that we can make it back to the state championship.”
Gundacker, like all the other girls, are sure believing in them having the high possibility of making it to the state Championships. With all their skills combined into this one team, they’ll for sure take up that opportunity and win it all.
We last went to state just last year, taking 1st place for their league. After taking first, that took them to state for the first time since 2013. This year the girls are hoping to make it to state for the second year in a row, and hoping to take it all once more.