Soccer season is learning experience

 

By ANDREW DREISCHARF
The Independent

 

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The Woodstock High School girls varsity soccer team is having a season full of surprises and unfortunate circumstances.
“They’re a wonderful group of girls to coach,” said WHS head coach Todd Clement.
The Blue Streaks are a young team. Last season, the Streaks had 14 seniors. This year’s team has only three returning varsity players.
“It’s a very young team,” said Clement. “They make young team mistakes. It’s different.”
The varsity team plays with five or six freshmen, depending on the game. That is a rarity for any varsity high school team regardless of the sport.
The lack of experience this season has Clement hopeful for the future. A full season of varsity-level play for the young team will benefit them greatly next year.
“Next season’s going to be a big difference when they are a more seasoned team,” said Clement.
One of the biggest issues facing the Streaks this season is injuries.
“Injuries have been tough,” said Clement. “The girls are tired. We’ve got quite a few players out. Hopefully, we should be getting a couple back soon.”
Another big factor in the Streaks’ season has been the weather. The first few weeks of the season, games were cancelled due to snow or rain. Now games are being stacked up day after day to make up for the lost matches.
“I told them to not reschedule any more games,” said Clement. “We just don’t have the time to do it. We’ve lost out on so much practice time as well.”
The lack of practice has hit the Streaks hard.
“It’s really hard without practice,” said Clement. “We need that time to work on things we’ve struggled with in games, but when we have game after game and no practice, it’s hard to work on those things.”
The Streaks were to begin playing at Olson Elementary School on a new field that is designed for soccer. Prior to this season, they played at Emricson Park and on the soccer field at WHS, which isn’t designed for soccer.
The teams have practiced at Olson, which is muddy, and at Emricson’s open field, which doesn’t have goals.
The new field at Olson still isn’t ready to be played on due to snow, rain and standing water.
“It’s unfortunate because we were really looking forward to having our own field,” said Clement. “Next season it’ll be great, though. We’re happy playing at Davis Park, but as soon as the Olson field is ready, we want to be there.”
Davis Park will host the remainder of this season’s home games for the Streaks.
“These are nice fields (at Davis),” said Clement. “They’ve done a great job here. The only setback is the wind. It’s very windy, and the ball just flies all over. Maybe in the future they’ll plant trees to knock down the wind. Other than that, it’s great here.”
The Streaks lost to Crystal Lake South 6-0 April 23. Melanie Vrasich made nine saves for WHS. The Streaks are currently 1-8-1 on the season and 0-4 in the Fox Valley Conference.
“South is a good team,” said Clement. “We got down on ourselves early, but we’re getting better. The freshmen are learning.”
The Streaks will play Dundee-Crown High School at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, May 1, at Davis Park.

This article was published in the April 30, 2008 edition of The Woodstock Independent.