With winter sports given the okay to start up, soccer has begun tryouts and started practicing. Though the seasons are off to a bit of a late start, both teams are confident the time they lost will not hurt their performance. 

“I think the team is going to be solid this year and the time lost isn’t going to really affect it,” says Junior Brody McConahay, adding that “the skill [of the team] is getting better every day.” Senior Mikella Reed talks about the girls team saying, “We’re already going at a good pace and the team looks really good this year, so as long as we work hard like we always do in practice, we’ll be able to start like we always do.” 

Both teams lost a notable amount of seniors last year but also have many seniors this year. The boys team lost 14 last year and have 5 seniors now. The girls lost 6 last year and have 10 this year. 

“The new seniors we have that were juniors last year still have the same leadership,” says McConahay, “I think they’ll step up the same as last year.” Alongside that, senior Mikella Reed says, “Our senior class has already done a great job with planning, there’s like a team hike, team sleepovers, a talent show, so I think everyone is going to be a lot closer.”

The girls team made it to the playoffs three years in a row, two of them being all the way to the finals. Last year, they fell just short of making it in. Having been ranked so high previously, losing before getting the chance for redemption was hard on many of the girls who were looking forward to it. 

“In previous years, I think some people were just lacking focus and kind of checked out by the end of the year,” says senior Joey Lujan. “I think we were definitely looking too far forward which was also a big problem,” adds Reed, “we are focusing a lot on just having fun in practices and as a team this year.”

While the pandemic is still going on, the teams are making sure they make every minute of every practice count. John Roberts, coach of the girls varsity team, says “with the current situation our state/country is in, we need to be aware that we all need to take care of ourselves in order to survive the season.” As eager as they are to get to playing games, each team is taking everything one step at a time, and making sure not to take advantage of their time.