With a variety of grade levels this year, the girl’s middle school A soccer team walked onto the field with barely any experience playing together. Despite this impediment, the team worked hard in practice and achieved an astonishing 5-1 record.
Head Coach Judy Bailey said that at the beginning of the season, the team’s biggest challenge was passing.
Although Coach Bailey’s Assistant Coach Hikmet Aslan, who is the Head Coach of the boy’s varsity team, could not attend most of the games, Coach Bailey would inform him of what the team needed to improve in practice. Coach Hikmet would then use his expertise to plan the practices.
In the second to last game against Foote School, the team started strongly and were winning 5-0 by halftime. “I moved everyone’s positions around…and so we only had two goals in the second half, but we still were dominating the game, and we outshot them tremendously,” Coach Bailey said.
During the team’s last game against Hopkins School, they only had two subs for most of the game, until eighth-grader leading defender Hana Roggendorf collided with the other team’s goalie and was out for the rest of the game. This game was definitely the biggest challenge for the team because they had to fill her spot.
“Hana went down in that game, and yet people stepped up and made sure that we came through with the win,” Coach Bailey said. “That was a real team victory.”
Although 10 of the 17 players on the team are eighth-graders, the team hopes to continue to dominate their opponents next year.
“Even though we are losing ten strong eighth-graders, we will have seven good returning players for next season,” seventh-grade midfielder Sophia Radmanovich said. “I think we are going to continue to play hard and be good leaders for the incoming sixth graders.”
