Lady Eagles Look To Avenge Last Season

The Lady Eagles soccer team finished 2021 with a 15-11 record a loss in the first round of district play last season, but they are hopeful for a better outcome this spring.

They started their season at the Warrenton Tournament on Friday and Saturday.

"Practices have been going really well," said head coach Bill Kackley. "They were very competitive for the most part, working on passing skills and maintaining possession."

The Lady Eagles traveled to St. James to play in a soccer Jamboree before beginning their regular season at Warrenton.

"The Jamboree was good for us to against someone else besides ourselves," Kackley said. "We did a lot of nice things, but there are some things that we need to continue to work on and to improve. We played a lot of players and moved some players around in different positions to try to figure out some things, like what is going to be our strongest defensively."

The Lady Eagles have been preparing hard for the upcoming season.

"Positive things that I have been seeing is that we are working on moving the ball," Kackley said. “We want to complete combination passes, which set up good opportunities to score."

The Lady Eagles have several seniors returning to the team, including Abby Wiegers, Jordan Trendle and Jewels Graddy.

"Some of our strengths are that we have some good, strong players returning that have some good varsity experience," Coach Kackley continued. "They also are able to play multiple positions."

Sullivan has a long road of practices ahead.

"We need to continue working on our passing, being able to see up the field, playing good solid defense as a unit, and also work on becoming better finishers," Kackley said.

The Lady Eagles haven't forgotten about their district loss last season.

"We as coaches and players have some high expectations," Kackley said. "Now we just have to continue to work hard on the field, if we are wanting to accomplish our goals. We still have a bad taste in our mouths from our first round district game loss."

Sullivan has a tough schedule this year that they are preparing for.

"We need to watch out for everyone on our schedule," Kackley said. "As a team, we can't just show up expecting to win, because that is when we could take a loss that we shouldn't. Our conference will be tough again this year and some non conference teams that we play have some good players returning."