At the beginning of the season, the JV Girls Soccer team had numerous goals they wanted to achieve. Some teams define success by their wins and losses but we do not. We define success as improving as a team throughout the year. Our projections, goals, and most importantly our progress reflect who we are as individuals and who we are as a team.

This year’s team is a young and relatively new one. With a majority of freshmen along with several other new players, our first priority was getting to know each other. In order to play as a team, we have to know each other as people and soccer players in order to be cohesive. Obviously bonding doesn’t happen overnight; however, half way through the season we have gotten closer and it shows on the field when we play. Being united has helped us deal with the commitment necessary to grow as individual players and a team. Our first challenge involved learning the basics, like passing, dribbling, and other miscellaneous skills. The solution was practice, practice, practice. Yesterday as I looked around I couldn’t help but notice how smoothly we went through our normal practice routine.

Another goal was to learn to be better soccer players by recognizing mistakes and correcting them on the fly. At this point in the season, we can look at our performance and identify what we did wrong which gives us things to work on in practice. Unfortunately, sometimes we just can’t seem to figure out how to get it right. We knew it wouldn’t be easy; but, every week we work as hard as we can so that we continue to improve.

Our final goal for the season has been to play as well as we practice. During practice we can pass, control the ball, and stay calm but when it comes to the game it becomes much harder to do. It doesn’t help that the score hardly reflects the way we play. Some of our best games and strongest battles have resulted in shutout losses. For example, in our last game against St. Margaret’s, our defense played a strong game and the offense had some really great plays, but due to the other team’s strength and ability, the score didn’t do justice to our team’s effort. Even though the coach tells us we played great, and we congratulate each other on a good game, it would be nice to be on the winning side of the score sheet, at least once this season.

I can predict with certainty that the team will always give it their all so they can be as successful on the field as off. While the scores and record may not reflect it, the Oxford Girl’s JV Soccer team takes pride in representing the school and doing their best on the field no matter the situation. So come on out and support the team in our last four games of the season! :D