by Ben Barrera | staff writer
Senior Brooke Stevens has some high expectations for the soccer team this season even though some key players were lost during the offseason.
The team got to work right away starting the day their season ended last year, they lost and gained players so they had to find a new connection between the new group. The girls are off to a 4-3-1 start to the season which is fairly good for the amount of talented squads they’ve gone up against.
“I think the girls have put in a lot of hard work this year. I think we are going to be missing some things like our key players. But, I think we have some of our players that normally don’t play are really gonna step up this tournament and help this out,” Stevens said.
Sophomore Sophia Smith has trust that the seniors will continue to lead the team this year in goals scored. Stevens also believes that some under the radar players on the team will step up and have a big role on the team during this upcoming tournament. The seniors consistently help the team stay in games whenever its not going well, they pick up the slack and gets the team back in games.
“I see them leading our team a lot, also scoring most of the goals and keeping us in it,” Sophia Smith said.
Khori Banks is playing her senior season, as D1 schools have her on their mind. She’s one of the biggest roles in their recent success, as she and fellow teammate Brooke Stevens have picked up the workload that last year’s seniors had.
“Honestly I think coming into it we really didn’t expect a lot, we lost a lot of good players so I think this upcoming season after playing a lot of scrimmages and having some good results I think we see ourselves going pretty far this year,” Senior Brooke Stevens said.
Stevens isn’t worried about leaving after this season for college because she feels confident that in the same way when she was a junior she had to step up, the next group of juniors will do the same.
“So there are five of us this year and all five of us do start. So, I think its really gonna be key having new JV players coming in and stepping up this year. I think a lot of our juniors though do know how to lead a team so I’m not worried about that really,” Stevens said.
Stevens believes that the seniors have an important role in keeping traditions alive. Small things like pregame rituals have been the same throughout the past years, so keeping those around is necessary.
“I think the seniors as a whole are some of the last ones to carry on our traditions from older coaches and stuff. So, I think really we just have a really important role in keeping those traditions alive,” Stevens said.
Stevens has her eyes on three tough opponents this upcoming season and they all have talented teams. Reagan and LEE – both are ranked higher in the state than Johnson at 26 and 42 while Johnson is number 64 in Texas.
“I wanna say Reagan is our toughest game because that’s our rival but honestly I think we’re looking out for Lee or Churchill this year,” Stevens said.
Smith believes the team is missing key players that would be nice to have, so the team isn’t fully prepared for their upcoming tournament, but they can still do some damage.
“Were missing a lot of players so I would say were semi prepared,” Smith said.
Smith believes that losing the seniors after this season will be really hard for them, so she wants to keep winning and go deep into the playoffs, because without this years seniors it could be a few years with not as much success.
“It will be a big impact, they are great leaders and they help the team a lot so it’s gonna be a downfall,” Smith said.
Smith along with other teammates have a lot of confidence in their team this season, Smith expects that they will keep adding more and more wins to their name.
“I expect a lot, we’re very good and we’ve been winning a lot so I expect more wins,” Smith said.