Benny Westcott
Sweet Home girls’ soccer will have a fresh look this season, after losing a number of players to graduation.
“We’ve got a new team,” head coach Ramiro Santana said. “Totally different than what we had last year.”
Despite the high turnover, the squad still includes last season’s Best Midfielder award-winner, junior Rylee Markell, as well as an Oregon West Conference honorable mention defender, junior Zianna Duncan.
Sophomore Amelia Sullens, the team’s Rookie of the Year, returns as a forward. The 17-girl roster boasts only one senior, midfielder Audrie Frangente.
“We have such a young team,” Santana said. “We’re a very inexperienced team. So, it’s kind of hard to say what our strengths will be.
“Our defense is pretty strong,” he added. “We don’t know how to move the ball that well, but we’ve got strong kickers. I don’t know how great we are going to be on offense. Our defense is probably going to be our key for everything.”
Still, a soccer team can rely on defense for only so long.
“We cannot just play defense the whole game,” he said. “We should be able to get up there. We always want to attack and be more of an offensive team than defense, but we will see how that’s going to work.”
So the girls have practiced passing, which the coach believed had room for improvement.
“Once they give the pass,” he said, “they don’t continue running. They think they’re done by kicking the ball away. They don’t continue the play. It’s something they haven’t learned. I hope that we get to be a good passing team and work on it.”
The Huskies open the season with five non-league games. They host Siuslaw (Aug. 25) and Tillamook (Aug. 31) and hit the road to play Klamath Union (Aug. 29), Junction City (Sept. 10) and Marshfield (Sept. 13).
“I don’t think we’ve ever in our past had this many practice games,” Santana said. “That’s going to help us learn and be a little more ready for our league. We can see what we need to do more of and get a better idea of how everything fits. It’s a good thing that we have these games. We normally have one or two and then are thrown in the league. We never have enough games to get ready.”
League play will begin in a slightly different OWC. Defending champion Woodburn moved up to 5A, while Sisters fell to 3A. The league has added North Marion, who previously competed in 4A’s Tri-Valley Conference.
“It’s a hard league,” Santana said. “Everybody’s so good in here.”
Santana thinks a lack of speed will pose a matchup issue.
“Philomath has so much speed,” he said. “We compete with Cascade, but they’ve got fast girls. That’s what’s killing us right now. With our defenders, we’re good when we have the ball on our side. But once somebody will come fast, they will easily pass them by, and my girls will have no chance to catch up with them. They’re solid, and they know how to play the ball, but speed is going to kill us this year. They will beat us by speed. They’re not going to beat us by playing the ball.”
Fortunately, however, the Huskies will have a track veteran in Markell, who is also planning to compete in cross-country this season, along with Sullens and younger sister Peyton Markell.
“I have her in the middle of the field because of her conditioning,” Santana said. “She’s full of energy and she can run for a long time. She’s a long-distance runner in track, so I figured that she’s the one who can move around the field.”
Positions are still being solidified, something the coach likened to “a puzzle that I need to work on.” From a numbers standpoint, the program’s 17 girls will make it difficult to field two teams.
The Huskies will try to improve on last season’s record, when they finished 1-12-1 overall and 0-11-1 in league play.
Rounding out the roster are juniors Faith Johnson and Jordan Farrell, sophomores Arielle Erickson, Peyton Markell, Brooklyn Erickson, Madison Lytle, Samantha Pineda-Villa, Tierney Clarno, Beatrice Reeve, Zoe Garret, Kirsten Sautel (rostered as the team’s goalkeeper), and Jess Martineau, and freshman Anabelle Morris. Santana is aided by assistant coach Jill Wilson.