After defeating Pace Academy 4-0 and taking the Region 4AAAA championship, the girls soccer team has its sights on the state championship. Last season, the team finished 11-7 overall and 7-0 in the region, advancing to the second round of the state playoffs.
Senior captain McKenzie Godfrey is confident in the team’s ability to progress in the playoffs.
“I’m pretty confident in this team’s ability to make it to the Final Four this year [in the playoffs],” Godfrey said. “I think one thing we should work on to get there is our ability to keep possession, and knowing when to speed the game up or slow it down.”
This year, the team has a new coach, Doug Altizer. Having previously coached at Decatur, Alitzer approached the season with ambitious goals.
“My expectations for this year were linked to being competitive with the top teams in the state and winning the region,” Altizer said. “This group has definitely met those expectations so far. We have a favorable bracket for the tournament, but we have to go out and earn a chance to reach the last stages.”
Senior captain Eve Nahmias believes having a new coach has opened new doors toward practice stability, as he emphasized commitment to new and current players. Additionally, she said that his background as a high school soccer coach has improved their tactical planning.
“We’ve had a lot more consistency with practices and our work ethic and just strategy, in general,” Nahmias said. “We definitely have been able to practice like four or three or four times a week, and we’ve definitely just kind of picked up our work ethic. He has been strategizing with us a lot, and you can tell he really knows what he’s doing.”
The main focus of practices this season has been speed of play. Altizer believes that by improving speed, the team will be more competitive.
“The one thing we have been stressing in practice all year is to increase our speed of play,” Altizer said. “As we execute faster and faster, we become a very good team in possession. If we can continue that growth, I believe we can compete with the top two to three teams in our classification.”
Godfrey credits the team’s success to improved speed of play.
“In practice, we focus a lot on our speed of play, which has gotten significantly better since last year,” Godfrey said. “This has been reflected in our record when playing some of the best teams in the state this season.”
Altizer introduced goal setting for each practice. One day, the team may work on shifting as a unit, and other days it may focus on crossing and finishing.
“He definitely tries to have us focus on a couple specific goals each practice, which
is really nice,” Nahmias said. “Some days, we’ll work on one [on] ones and others we will make the right runs and play the right balls. He’ll re-watch the game tape from that week, and then kind of try to find our weaker points, and then have us work on that for a practice or two.”
Newer players said these specific goals help them relate practices to games.
“When we practice, we usually talk about our game and what we need to improve on,” freshman Adelyn Frietag said. “Our coach sets these expectations for practice and translates it to our training, and I think having these goals sets a standard for us as a team; so, going into a game we know what we need to do to succeed.”
With nine new players on the team, the team’s dynamics shifted.
“We are definitely, like all close friends off the field, and I think on the field, it’s just getting better and better each game,” Nahmias said. “I think that we have a very different team. We lost a lot of people, and we gained a lot of people, and then also combining that with having a new coach who is like putting us in different positions, it’s definitely super different, but I think it’s really good.”
With the end of playoffs approaching, Altizer thinks positively about the team’s chance of securing the championship win.
“Team chemistry is really strong,” Altizer said. “We have a group of players willing to work to improve and willing to work for each other. We have a favorable bracket for the tournament, and we will have to put in our all, but I have confidence in the team.”
