As four of Stettler’s teams head to provincials this weekend, the soccer coaches are hoping that their teams will maintain their strong performances to cap off the season.
“They are eager to compete at the provincial level,” said Nadine Lang, U12 girls’ coach referring to the enthusiasm among her players.
“They have really come together as a team and are showing improvement at every practice,” added Lang. “It is impressive to see the entire team motivating one another which makes our jobs as coaches pretty easy, both in practice and in the matches we play as we saw during our last game against Lacombe at the provincial qualifier tournament in Rocky Mountain House.”
According to Lang, her girls are in top physical form and have shown from their last few games that they are also mentally prepared to take their game to the next level.
“All of us, including assistant coaches Grace Chapman and Brad Robbins and myself are looking forward to seeing what they bring to the field in St. Paul this weekend.”
The U14 girls’ coach Kennedy Fisher said that she had high expectations of her girls.
“We will be facing some difficult teams this weekend, teams that gave us some trouble in the Night Classic tournament,” said Fisher. “But they’ve performed extremely well over the last couple of weeks, especially at qualifiers, and they really mesh together as a team.”
According to Fisher. Her team’s biggest strength is working as a unit.
“I think them working as a unit is what’s going to give them the greatest success,” added Fisher. “They are all team players which really helps a lot and I’ve seen what my girls can do and I know they’re going to go and give 100 per cent no matter what teams they’re facing.”
The U12 and U14 girls will play in St. Paul on July 8, 9 and 10.
The U16 girls have had a mixed bag throughout the season and their coach Shelly Davis-Hall is hoping that they finish somewhere in the middle of the pack.
“With summer vacation already on many of the girls had booked away times, which made them unavailable for practice,” said Davis-Hall. “But we are hoping we can get together for more practices and when we play the provincials pool in our strengths to be the best.”
Davis-Hall said that she would be missing one of her players but she has 18 girls on the roster, which is the biggest among the teams.
The U16 boys’ coach Garrett Burns is extremely proud of how his boys have done.
“No matter what the outcome is of this provincial weekend, I am very proud of this group of young men on how they have played all season,” said Burns. “The boys have been playing very well going into provincials this upcoming weekend, so I expect them to play to the full skill level all weekend, and if they do this, I have no doubt in my mind that they will be coming home from Camrose with a medal.
Burns said that they would be missing their leading goal scorer Johan Bouwer for the weekend but believes the boys will pick up the slack where needed and play the controlled game they have been having all season because when they start communicating and really passing the ball as a team not much can stand in their way.
“We have been really just focusing on the fundamentals going into this weekend and we are practicing the basics on defence and on offence,” added Burns. “We have been doing lots of one-on-one, two-on-one and three-on-two drills for our defence but also focusing on our offence.”
Both U16 girls and boys play in Camrose for provincials this weekend.