Seven-on-seven scrimmages, 11 vs 11 scrimmages, fitness, shooting and dribbling tests. As the future varsity team ran across the field, occupying their territories, last season’s successes flushed their minds.

Varsity finished last season with a winning record of 14-3-1 within the games they played. Last season had a lot more success than previous seasons. 

Girls soccer tryouts were ongoing from Monday, Oct. 18, through Thursday, Oct. 21. Students who participated in tryouts were expected to perform a series of tasks including assessing their abilities to dribble, pass, shoot, and other aspects that gave insight to their overall fitness levels. JV coach Charles Kenny and varsity coach Angela Densberger kept track of how each student performed through a listed form.

“[We have] ranking systems of between times and how well they did,” Densberger said. “I’ve seen some of them play on the big field as well, so kind of a culmination of all those items.”

Students such as freshman Olivia Cachat and junior Kiley Keegan hope to continue the team’s success this season. Cachat made JV this year and Keegan has been on the varsity team since her freshman year. 

“I was really excited for this year and I definitely want to try to win more games,” Keegan said. “I definitely do think we have the team to do so, so it’ll be exciting, and we’re playing harder teams for the experience to get to the next level.”

With this, both coaches Kenny and Densberger can agree that the future of the team this year is uncertain due to the number of new people that are being brought onto the team, but their goals for their teams will help them win state and plenty of games.

“For each player to get better, that’s what my goal is,” Kenny said. “More than winning games is getting each player better, so they can move on to varsity.”

Coach Densberger on the other hand is hoping to set a clear focus and a bonding team for each game that the varsity team participates in this year.

“Going into each game I just want to focus on that one game rather than look too far into districts and beyond,” Densberger said. “If we can get that nice cohesive group with good chemistry and people who want to work for each other, then those goals are going to come.”

Sophomore Skye Barnes made the varsity team and explained why this year brings a hopeful year for success. 

“It’s exciting because we apparently didn’t do too well the season before [last year’s season],” Barnes said. “So to finally win, I think everybody was pretty excited.”

At the end of the day, excitement for the season is high. Nineteen people were anticipated to make both teams this year, and seniors Estelle Cachat, Riley Sophia and Alexis Madlang were named captains.

“I think it’s always exciting, you’re always starting a new chapter, a new group,” Densberger said. “Lots of decisions to be made so it’s definitely not my favorite part of the year, but the excitement is definitely there [during tryouts].”

Girls soccer’s instagram posted a picture of the varsity team this year on Oct. 25, tagging those that made the team. The first practice of the year for varsity took place on Monday Oct. 25, and their preseason games will take place on Tuesday and Thursday next week at Lake Mary.