The start and the finish were encouraging.
And believe it or not, even the middle, 14 consecutive losses, offered something of a positive.
That’s pretty much how Medical Lake girls’ soccer head coach Zane Higgins summed up a year where his team struggled, but grew at the same time.
The Cardinals opened the season with a 3-2 loss at home to 2B school, St. Georges, and closed with a 2-1 win over the Dragons on the road.
The good part out of the loss was it took just one game for the Cardinals to accomplish what it couldn’t in 14 contests in 2013 — score.
“That’s what we’re looking for, a general improvement year-to-year,” Higgins said. “Compared to the year before we had a huge improvement.”
Higgins pointed out that by the second half of the Northeast A League season, his team was competing with just about everyone, playing one and two goal games, with everybody.
“You just gotta’ break through to where you’re on the winning end of that,” Higgins said. “And sometimes that’s hard to do.”
Medical Lake is a program that has struggled with just six wins since 2010. But they snapped a 35-game losing streak with the win over St. Georges, a nonleague contest, Oct. 29.
“That last game of the year with St. Georges, even though it was not a league game, I think it kind of helped our attitudes and prepared us for next year,” Higgins said. “Hopefully we’ll get on the winning side next year.”
Another boost of confidence was their 3-2 shootout loss Oct. 23 versus Freeman, one of the top teams in the Northeast A League and 5-0 winners earlier in the season.
He said the group had great attitudes and he saw them just getting better and better.
One of the key returnees is freshman Makayla Geiger, a top offensive threat on a team that offered little scoring punch.
“She’ll be back,” Higgins said. “She was involved in every one of our goals.”
Jessica Laird, a first-team All-NEA selection will also return. “She’s an outstanding player.”
Most of the defense will return, outside of Hannah Hartman, the league’s top keeper in 2013 and an Honorable Mention pick this season. “That’s going to be a huge one to replace,” Higgins said. The backup was Emalee Steinke who saw limited action.
There are plenty of others who could provide offense, but Higgins did not identify them specifically,
“There’s a whole bunch of people that could do that. It depends on where I put them in and where we’re going to need them next year,” Higgins said.
Kayla Pruitt started the season on offense, and scored a goal.
“She can put the ball in the net but by the end of the year I had her back on defense,” Higgins said.
Paul Delaney can be reached at [email protected].
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