Girls soccer: Local squads happy to be back on the pitch

Players excited to get a season – and a postseason – in 2021

When the Dixon and Sterling girls soccer teams kicked off their season last week at SVCC, it meant far more to the players and coaches than your typical rivalry game.

It meant the end of a very long wait – and lots of new faces on the field and the sideline.

After the 2020 season was canceled due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, girls soccer teams around the state were forced to bid farewell to seniors who saw their careers end without another game, and say hello to freshmen who now would have to wait until their sophomore seasons to make their anticipated high school debuts.

“We have a newer team, and we haven’t played together in two years,” Sterling senior captain Ellie Gasso said. “Everybody’s a little rusty from not having played, and we have a lot of girls who have never played high school soccer before, either freshmen this year or sophomores who would’ve had their first season last year.

“I think we’re just looking to get comfortable with each other, build some team chemistry, and hopefully put some shots in the net and win a few games.”

While the similar refrain from all the sports this school year has been to have fun and improve in a shortened season with no postseason, that’s not as much the case this spring. In an effort to make up for the only sports that saw their entire seasons canceled last year, the IHSA has pushed this spring season into June, and is planning for full state series in each one.

“I think we’re really looking forward to this season,” Dixon senior Abby Goff said. “We have so many games – we play two games a week, maybe even three some weeks – and I think a lot of us are just ready to play. Even after not getting a season last year, a lot of our sophomores are excited, too. We’re looking to have success, try to win the conference and then play a postseason.

“Especially after getting our whole season canceled last year, we get pretty much kind of a full season compared to the other sports. It’s great to have that to look forward to.”

The key to a season where so many games are being played in a condensed schedule is depth, and it’s something both the Duchesses ad Golden Warriors displayed in their season opener last week.

Both coaches substituted liberally throughout the game, and both were happy to see their players get in the flow of the game quickly.

It’s something Dixon has had the luxury of for several seasons, and it looks to be more of the same in 2021.

“We have a lot of good players, and I’m hoping that will help us out a lot,” Dixon senior Page Stees said. “There are so many talented players on this team, and when everyone’s working together, we can make some plays and get some pretty good results. I’m excited to see where we can go with it.”

Gasso sees her Sterling squad in much the same light. She believes it’s just a matter of playing together to find the winning formula.

“We’re still working on that team chemistry, and we’re definitely excited to all be back on the field together,” she said. “I think as the season progresses, we’ll make some big improvements. I think we’ll get to where we want to be, we just haven’t had a ton of practice yet, and we’re coming off of not having a season. Everybody’s excited to get back at it, and we’re excited to just grow as a team.”

Back on the Dixon side, the eight seniors are taking their turn as team leaders. While none of them got to experience a lighter level of that leadership as juniors last seasons, they are all impact players and have seen what it takes to bring a team together and have success.

“Us seniors that have played outside of high school, or some seniors that have played before when we were younger, we tell the younger players ‘We’re here, we’ll teach how we’re doing it, you’re going to be great,’” senior Emma Evans said. “We’re really proud to teach our new players, and we’re already noticing some of the strengths of our new freshmen and sophomores. We just keep telling them to stay confident, and we’ll be there for them if they need help.

“It’s just great to be out here together, and to see so many people coming out and playing hard and working to get better.”

Just as much as wins, it’s that daily improvement that will be the benchmark early in 2021. While some of the players on both sidelines recently finished their club soccer seasons, others haven’t played since the end of 2019 – or even since middle school – and are still trying to get their footing.

But Gasso sees a lot of potential in her Golden Warriors teammates.

“I think we just need to get comfortable on the ball again,” she said. “We have a lot of players who have very good footwork, so hopefully we’ll learn to be a lot calmer on the ball, and just get open and find easy passes and be able to work our way down the field. We’ll do some finishing drills so we can make sure we utilize our opportunities on goal, and just keep working together and learning how to play as a team.”

“We’re just happy to be playing again,” Sterling coach Alexandra Miller added. “The girls are really looking forward to having a season, and we’ve got lots of players who have never played at the high school level before and are excited to improve and show what they can do. We’ve got a lot to work with.”

It’s the mixing of the experienced players and the fresh faces that has been the fun part so far, according to Dixon’s Taylor Harrison, and she’s excited to see what she and her fellow seniors can do in their final season for the Duchesses … and really just happy to be able to play their final season after so many former teammates didn’t get to a year ago.

“We’re just going to enjoy this whole season,” she said. “We have some players coming back together, we have some players that haven’t been here in a while, and we have a lot of players who haven’t played here before, so we’re excited to get out there together and become a team. And we’re really excited that we’re going to get a postseason, so there’s some good things ahead, hopefully.”

Ty Reynolds

Ty Reynolds

Ty is the Sports Editor at Sauk Valley Media, and has covered sports in the Sauk Valley for more than two decades.