They are finally out on the turf after a year away. Under the lights, with their parents and friends right on the bleachers looking over the field, they wait to get the touch, the pass, the goal, the win. The girls soccer team officially started their season in the beginning of April. With their first game under their belt, they are looking forward to the rest of the season. On Monday, April 5 the girls went against Pleasant Valley. Although they lost, they gained experience, according to player Mia Deprenger ‘22.

“Coming into our first real game we knew Pleasant Valley was a good team. They’ve always been an aggressive and technical team. Those are the type of teams that you want to play first so they can expose our weaknesses and help us figure out what we need to fix going forward,” Deprenger said. 

Tryouts for the team were held over spring break. After the lists came out and teams were formed, they practiced for three weeks and had a scrimmage to prepare for the upcoming season.

“Our scrimmage went well, but we have a very young team that doesn’t have experience playing in high school games,” Deprenger said. “We have  to figure out how to play with each other. We have really good players but we aren’t connecting well yet. All this comes with time and more experiences.”

Last year, their season was canceled as COVID-19 was just starting. A year later, there are still concerns surrounding dealing with quarantines and exposures amidst many students and staff receiving vaccines.

“A lot of our players, including me, made the decision to switch to online learning for the third trimester to lessen the chance of being quarantined,” Deprenger said. “We also wear our masks during games, and we haven’t been letting them affect how we play which is really good. I’m hoping we stay healthy and get healthy for the remainder of the season.”

The team hopes to complete a full season, while being competitive and playing better games each time. Gaining experience and maintaining friendships is also high on their priority list according to Deprenger. 

“Hopefully as we keep practicing together we’ll learn how to play with and support each other better. It feels like everyone on the team knows we can be very good and we’re all excited to put in the work and see where we can get this season,” Callie Menzel ‘21 said.

The captains this year are Lizzie Peters ‘21, Stella Foster ‘21, and Menzel. Missing out on their junior season, the girls are itching to get out there and have their eyes on a winning record, Menzel explained. 

“I’m super excited about this team, everyone is ready to be competitive. I look forward to going to practice everyday because I know it’s going to be fun but also beneficial because everyone is putting in the work,” Menzel said. 

Another change is the new head coach. Scheduled to coach last season, Corbin Scholz is heading into her first real season as varsity head coach of the girls soccer team. 

“I love being the head coach. It feels good to be able to coach the way my favorite coaches coached me growing up. Of course there is a lot of administrative work on the side that I have to take care of, but that comes with any job,” Scholz said. “The high schoolers are so fun to work with and there is barely a practice I leave without smiling or laughing the whole time.”

Despite challenges, Scholz is hoping to make this season competitive, and also make it one the athletes will learn life skills from and remember.“I’m hoping to not only help them understand the game of soccer and improve their skills, but to encourage them to be the best versions of themselves in this world; to teach them the importance of being kind to others, completing their school work, and giving everything they do 100 percent,” said Scholz.