Lady Eagles Open Season At Tournament

After being buoyed by the scoring of Emma Randolph a year ago, Sullivan’s girls soccer team must find a different path to victory in 2018.

For head coach Bill Kackley, that means doubling down on defense.

“Right now, I told the girls ‘don’t think I’m being negative, but we’re not a scoring team,” said Kackley, who enters the fifth year of his second stint heading up the program. “We’ve got to focus on defense. Focus on defending, improving ball control and passing.”

Sullivan’s seniors a year ago combined for 42 goals — 23 from Emma Randolph and eight from Kate Randolph. The team finished 10-8 and was knocked out in the first round of the district tournament. Sullivan took advantage of defenses by sending the ball down field to Emma Randolph and letting her work against the defense, but Kackley said they have to move away from that.

“The last few years, we passed well sometimes, but we would kick and chase,” he said. “We have to get away from that. We can’t do that.”

Sullivan will have to play very conservatively. Kackley believes his team will have to grind out victories in low-scoring games.

The Lady Eagles have six seniors and the defense they were counting on took a hit when Bria Jones opted to return to track where she was an all-state athlete as a freshman and sophomore. Seniors Lauren Hoffman and Sophie Sellers and junior Katie Creek are fresh off a district championship in basketball. Hoffman and Creek were on the district champion volleyball team and hoping. They’re hoping to win titles in all three sports seasons.

“Our seniors are hungry,” said Kackley, who is not going into the season with a championship-or-bust mentality. “If they play with heart, play solid defensively, don’t fear anyone, don’t play intimidated, I’ll be happy.”

Kackley wants to see improvement from the beginning of the season to the end. “I told them if they can play a solid game, they may win a district title,” he said, noting if this group wins just one district game they would match what only one other Sullivan team has done.

Sullivan opened the season Monday at the Lutheran St. Charles Tournament.

“We’ll start in a tough tournament,” Kackley said. The team gets Lutheran North on Tuesday and Hazelwood Central on Thursday. “We may take our lumps at the beginning, but we need to show progress. I don’t want blowouts.”