Coach Jeremiah Mattingly is changing up the girls’ varsity soccer team a bit this year, with some old players returning and some fresh faces coming into the team.

“We have six returning starters. We have nine new varsity players. We have four freshmen on varsity,” Mattingly said about the team this year.

Mattingly has a desire to improve some aspects of the teams play this year from the faults they had last year.

“We were lacking in the attack and ability to possess the ball last year,” Mattingly said. “We were not able to attack with numbers because our passing ability was limited, which caused us to play direct and only involve one maybe two people in the attack.”

However, there are some new strengths Mattingly sees in the team this year.

“We will be very good in the back. Our defending back four and GK is very solid.  We also added more ability to possess and add more people into the attack this season.”

Mattingly wants to look at some aspects of his team this year during non-conference play.

“I will look for us to develop more patterns to attack. Can we get multiple people involved in scoring?” Mattingly said.

The team jumped out to a positive start pushing a 4-0 record and scoring 14 goals while only conceding 1.

At the annual Battle of the Beach the girls defeated both Jacksonville and Richlands 3 to 0.

A non-conference game against Millbrook was dropped due to rain, but it was followed by a 4 to 0 win over Cleveland and a 4 to 1 win versus Garner.

Mattingly described the play through the first four games as “a cohesive effort on the field and a desire to play the game the correct way while keeping a good attack and having fun.”