This year the girls soccer team was stacked with strong returners and young talent. They had a regular season record of 15 wins, three losses, three ties and possessed a one-way golden ticket to the state playoffs.
Head Coach Matt White says it was the combination of players that helped pave the road to State.
“This year we have a lot of new players who are contributing that have had a direct impact, players who are returning players and more experienced have helped significantly,” White said.
In high school sports, rosters are ever changing with the consistent flow of graduating seniors and up-and-coming freshman. This leads to new ways of coaching every year.
“Every single year in high school sports is like a hand of poker. You play the hand, and then all the cards go back in the deck and you reshuffle and it’s a brand-new season,” White said. “I would say this has been a good hand of cards.”
Because of the consistent ebb and flow of girls through the program, White says he has never liked the idea of pre-planning how a season will go. Instead, he prefers to patiently wait and see how the cards will be dealt.
“The second you start setting goals in which other people are in charge of, whether they happen or not, that’s a recipe for disaster,” White said. “I totally believe in the philosophy of you coach the team that you have; It’s not the kids that I wish I had or the kids I used to have, it’s the kids that you do have.”
Every new season presents new strengths and weaknesses, things that teams are great at and things that need to be worked on. This year, with a younger team than normal, White has made tweaks that have led to great success.
“We’ve changed some positioning where players that allow kids to be in spots where they can contribute. We’ve adjusted some of our patterns to what this group of players is and their skill sets and athleticism abilities,” White said.
When it comes to state predictions, White never planned on making assumptions on what may or not happen. His goal was to prepare his team as much as possible for any outcome that came their way.
“It’s a lot of film, a lot of scouting to set up for the opponents favorite thing to do. And then see if we can make them move to their option B,” White said.
White says no matter what the scoreboard says, if the Vikings can control the field the entire game then it’ll still be a win.
“It may not be a win on the scoreboard, but it’s a win when we enforce somebody else to make changes. We got to keep doing what we want to do,” White said.
