“I’m very much hoping and working to get to the final because hopefully, we can come home with a state championship,” said senior Maia Gutmann, one of the three captains of the girls varsity soccer team. 

After going to the state championship last year and earning second place, the girls varsity team plans to bring home the win this year. “[The] big field really just gave people energy, like a level that I don’t think a lot of people realize that we were able to play with,” said senior and varsity co-captain Emelia Warta. 

Although losing to Wilsonville, a rival team, proved to be difficult, head coach Andrew Frazier knew exactly what the team needed to raise their spirits. Coach Frazier set up “five football” which is a game where each team has five players, one goalkeeper, and four infield players. 

Coach Frazier introduced this game, “so we wouldn’t keep being down on ourselves. And I think that was kind of huge in our step to making our next run this season,” said Emma Buchanan, another one of the captains. 

Another struggle the girls soccer team has faced is the loss of players on their team due to the graduating seniors of 2022. “We lost some key players. Kate Collins was a very good center back,” Buchanan said. “Finding our groove this year has taken a bit longer, but we’ve got some key freshmen that all work and play really hard.”

This year, the team got new freshmen to fill spots on the team. “We have a lot of good new people this year, and specifically, we have two key freshmen that have definitely helped create opportunities and assists, and also having people that were on JV last year now come up on varsity,” Warta said. “It’s been very beneficial because I feel like we have a really big roster this year.” 

These players have expressed that they have built personal connections with each other during their season so far. “Now I feel like we’re really connected personally and so people can share pretty much anything with each other and know that we’re more than just teammates, we’re friends too,” Warta said. 

“Building that team chemistry has been a little bit more rocky just because we don’t have as set of a lineup as we did last year, but I think that we’re all getting into the groove of things, finding our team chemistry,” Gutmann said.

While the girls varsity soccer team has faced some challenges this year, they are getting back into the groove of chasing their goal of making it back to the state championship and winning.