The Freedom Middle School soccer team finished with a 3-8-2 record through merges and injuries. At the beginning of the year, the boys’ soccer team had enough players, 14, with new students coming up from sixth grade to play. On the other hand, the girls’ team did not, with 10. Eleven players are needed to play soccer without substitutions. This resulted in the two teams having to merge as a CO-ED team. The girls would play alongside the boys and have to play in the boys’ division.
There were some benefits to going CO-ED such as more substitutions so the players aren’t as tired. Some of the challenges of CO-ED were “Learning to play with boys, for some people that haven’t played with boys before.” Avary Cooper, player, grade 8 said.
“I think the season went well considering everything that happened leading up to our first game (the decision to go CO-ED). As a coach I don’t always look at the wins and losses, I will look more at how we improve as a whole, on a team level, and also as individual players, which I feel everyone improved their game in one way or another.” Tim Casto, coach, said. When asked about the challenges of going CO-ED, Casto said, “Honestly, not as many as I thought there were going to be. I wish we would have had more time before the season started to practice as a whole, but we adapted very quickly. But I would say trying to find 24 matching uniforms to fit both boys and girls was the biggest challenge lol.”
“It was a mid-season,” Bryce Wagner, player, grade 7 said.
Another soccer team in the division, Sewickley Academy, did not have enough players to play, resulting in schedule changes.
“In the end it really didn’t have much effect. We ended up playing Ambridge twice, in place of the Sewickley Academy games.” Casto said. The first game of the season was a scrimmage played against South Fayette and Blackhawk. With one half being played against South Fayette and the other against Blackhawk. A fence was put up in the neighboring softball field of the soccer practice field, requiring the soccer practice field to be smaller.
When asked about what the team improved upon most, Casto said, “Definitely playing as a team. The game is played with 11 players and it takes all 11 players to do their specific jobs to be successful. As the year went on, we improved on how to keep our shape/formation and use the whole soccer field.”
“We did pretty good,” Tarl Dinning, player, grade 7, said, “We went up and down.”
When asked about doing things differently next year, Casto said, “I’m sure that I will make some small changes, nothing too major though. I feel that coaches can improve from year to year just the same as players can. One thing I would like to change that could affect the year, I would like to start a little earlier than I did this year. Maybe have a more formal camp that’s more inline with the way high school does.”
The season had its ups and downs, but the team made it until the end.
“I am very proud of the team this year. We embraced the situation of going CO-ED, there were a few bumps along the way but I feel we handled them well. Good luck to all the 8th graders going to high school next year. We have some really good players moving up that I think could have an impact on the high school teams. I can’t wait to see everyone next season!” Casto said.
