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Sports

Patch Preview: 2011 Girls Soccer

Season preview of MICDS, Ladue, and Villa; Burroughs and St. Joseph's Academy to come after spring break

The Ladue-Frontenac area has an unbelievable crop of high school athletes, and girls soccer is no exception. This season, underclassmen will lead their teams. This season, some teams are looking to rebuild. This season, fans will watch younger players mature into the team leaders of tomorrow. High-caliber competition from these teams has been the rule, and 2011 promises more.

Villa:  Everyone’s a Leader 

Villa Head Coach Tim Twellman knows he has a great group of girls together this year.  At practice they were energetic and vocal, encouraging each other and giving tips here and there on how to better that last shot.  This is exactly what Twellman wants: leadership and confidence from all of his players.

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He even asks for leadership from the younger players.  “We’ve got such a good group of young kids coming up through, and we want the leadership to come from everybody,” he said. “We’ve got four freshman and a bunch of sophomores and juniors, and they all have to step up.”

Coming off of a 12-6-1 record from last year, Twellman wants his girls to push for better. “I think offensively we want to do a bit more than we’ve done in the past.  We’re really looking to be consistent all the way through.”

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Consistency coupled with the energy displayed at practice will make Villa a tough competitor.

Ladue:  Looking to Younger Talent

With no seniors and a new head coach this year, Ladue is made up of mostly new talent, all the way around. However, new Head Coach Dave Aronberg is only excited for what’s to come; though he knows it’s going to be a bit of a rebuilding year, he has the same goals as always in sight for his girls.

“We’re usually competitive in our conference, and we have the same goal to place well in the tournaments that we’re in. We focus on conference, we focus on those other tournaments that we play, and then we give a good showing in districts.  That’s kind of the way we go,” Aronberg said, when asked about his plans this season. 

 Aronberg has worked as assistant coach for Ladue for the past few years, so although he has a new title, he’s familiar with his team. 

“One of our returning players, Abby Walter, will be playing varsity for her third year. She’s been playing since her freshman year, and she’s our team leader as a junior,” Aronberg said, noting that his other two captains are sophomores. “And we have a good crop of freshman. In fact, we kept three on this year’s team that will be playing significant minutes. We definitely have talent, just young talent.”

 Aronberg can see how that can be a good thing, though. “There’s going to be a lot of excitement because there are a lot of spots up for grabs. Our practices are going to be competitive,” he said.

Competing at practice translates into competing in games. If Aronberg’s girls are playing hard whenever they’re on the field, Ladue will undoubtedly have a successful season.

MICDS: Balanced and Back Ready

It’s Michael Black’s third year as MICDS head coach, and one could say that things have turned around with him in charge. MICDS was 1-11 in 2008, the year before Black took over; in the 2009 season, Black’s first year, they pushed hard to finish 7-13; and last year in 2010, they finished 15-10, more than doubling their wins from the prior year, and seeing their first winning season in a few years. 

Hopefully, this year MICDS will stay on the same track to victory. Black feels good about it; his team is very balanced.  “Our skills are fairly good, and we try to possess the ball.  That helps both offensively and defensively,” he said when asked about his team's strengths. “We have a lot of girls that can play. We have a lot of balance and we’l be able to play a lot of players and not lose anything as far as keeping possessions and playing good soccer. That’s our strength, rather than one particular position.”

On top of team balance, two of his returning players are top contributors.  Last year senior Katherine Spataro led the team in points, and senior Chloe Ferris was the leading goal-scorer.  Both were First Team All-League, and they both are back and ready to play.

“We basically have all but two girls back, and so we are expecting to move forward from where we were and hopefully have success,” Black said. “It’s all going to depend on how hard they work.  Their attitudes have been really good so far—they are ready to win. They want to. They are looking to. They’ve got that motivation, and that is going to help us.”

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