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Woodmore girls’ varsity soccer team has proven that it was one of the top teams in the Suburban Lakes League last year with a winning record of 13-4-1.
With the loss of only two seniors, the team is still going strong. The girls are on track to having an even better season than the last.
“We’ve had two years of hard work, working on ball skills, foot skills, the typical soccer things and I think you’re starting to see the rewards of two years of hard work by all the players,” Coach Malcolm Edge said. “We’re still a little short of where we need to be but we are getting there.”
The Wildcats are 8-2-2, tying local team Oak Harbor, 2-2, and defeating Cardinal Stritch, 10-0, in non-league action.
Last week, the Wildcats traveled to take on a previously undefeated and untied Van Buren team and handed them their first tie in a 1-1 contest. Van Buren is now 11-0-1.
“We stopped their winning streak,” Edge said. “Van Buren is a nice, little program down there.”
Senior Taylor Avers said, “The team is looking a lot better from last year. Everyone is getting along and getting a lot closer to one another.”
Avers returned to the program from a great season last year, ending the season with the school record of 34 goals. She is now taking on some new challenges as captain of her team.
Along her side is junior Shannon O’Connor and senior Brittney Wolford, who are also strong leaders for the team.
The Lady Cats were looking forward to this season, although they were a little skeptical about the new Northern Buckeye Conference with Rossford and Fostoria coming in.
“It’s a lot more competition,” said forward junior Taylor Haar. “We are not used to having to play teams like this.”
Still, Woodmore is 5-2 in the NBC with both losses coming to Lake 3-2 at Woodmore and 2-0 on the Flyer’s field in what Edge called “an absolute downpour.”
“It’s a very good season so far,” said Edge. “We’re a little disappointed. We gave Lake two good games, but just fell short.”
The Wildcats defeated Eastwood 7-1 at home and Genoa 1-0 on the road. Edge definitely believes the NBC may be an even better girls’ soccer league than the SLL was. NBC members are double round-robin contests against five opponents, creating a 10-game schedule.
“It’s getting better,” Edge said. “I think it will be a good league. I think you’ve got teams like Lake which will always be the perennial team. I think you’ll find Woodmore is coming up there but is still a ways behind. I think you’ll find that the NBC will be more equal than in the past. You’ve got some growing programs and Eastwood is going to be a good program in the next couple years. Genoa is always going to be good, Woodmore is good at this point.
“At this point, we’ll probably end up second behind Lake if we continue playing the way we’re playing in the NBC, which is actually a very good place in our league considering we are a relatively new program.”
This Wednesday, Woodmore has a non-league contest at Anthony Wayne starting at 7 p.m.
Woodmore is in the Division III sectional at Genoa that includes Cardinal Stritch, Genoa, Huron, Margaretta, Northwood and Woodmore. Sectional play is October 15 and 22 and the draw was Sunday.
“I think you’ve got three good teams — Genoa, Woodmore, and Northwood probably are the top three there,” Edge said. “We’re just going to take it one game at a time and we’ll just take it that way. I don’t want to project ahead and say we are going to come out of it because I don’t know if that is the case because obviously Northwood is going to be strong and I still have a lot of respect for the Genoa program. After last year watching Genoa beat Lake, anything can happen in soccer.
Michael Travis is a Woodmore junior who writes for the school newspaper, Window to Woodmore. Some of his story from the September issue of the school newspaper was used with permission from advisor Carolyn Nitz.
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