After a hard season last year with only five wins, head coach Greg Zawistowski hopes to lead the team to a victorious season. One of the goals for this season is to beat both Stone Bridge and Broad Run since the girls haven’t beaten those schools for eight years on the varsity level.

 “That’s my goal in my head and that’s the expectation I’m going to put on these girls. I think we can compete, we just have to make sure we do the small things and make sure we do it right,” said Zawistowski.

 One of the things the team needs to do, which all teams need to, is learn to take the good with the bad, something that senior Olivia Camera knows well.

 “This season my goal is for our team to continue to improve every game and stay motivated to play. There are going to be [tough] games, you win some, you lose some. As long as we take our failures and learn from them, I think that will be really key for us moving forward and building our success,” said Camera.

 Camera will be going to the University of San Francisco to play soccer, which is an exciting opportunity that not many get. Though she has this accomplishment to look forward to, she is upset that she will no longer be able to play high school sports. However, instead of focusing on the negatives, she is choosing to use her experience to help advance the rest of the team.

 “Making varsity again as an upperclassmen is really important to me because then I can teach the underclassmen good sportsmanship and [act as] their role model,” said Camera.

 Camera isn’t the only role model on the team, for junior Madison Patrick it has always been her older sister, senior Kristen Patrick, who also plays on the girls varsity team, and her older brother who played on the boys varsity team before graduating. She said that they are part of the reason she decided to play soccer and they help her out whenever she needs it. Patrick enjoys working with her sister on the soccer field and they have a good relationship with each other.

 “We work really well together. She yells at me sometimes and I yell at her, but it’s fun playing with her,” said Patrick.

 Freshman Theodora Walton does not have this privilege and sometimes feels intimidated knowing that she is among the youngest on the team.

  “[The other girls] are more comfortable on the field and I’m still finding my groove with the team and [getting used to] playing with the girls,” said Walton.

 Though she is one of the youngest, she has more than six years of experience playing soccer and was able to beat out many talented boys to make the soccer team at her old school in Denmark since the school had no girls team. Though this is her greatest accomplishment in soccer, she is excited to play varsity soccer and is very excited to make the varsity team as a freshman.

 “So far we seem like a very strong team and I think we’re going to play well and go very far,” said Walton.

 Sophomore Asha Silva knows what it’s like to be a freshman on the varsity team since she made the team last year. Though she is worried about the other teams getting better since the teams are constantly changing, she has good goals and is excited to play.

 “[I’m going] to play my hardest and have fun and do the best as we can as a team,” said Silva.

 Assistant coach Brendan Ogden agrees that playing their hardest is the best way to have a better record than last season.

 “I want us to play hard every single game, be competitive and give it our all. If we cover those things, then our record should take care of itself,” said Ogden.

 Ogden knows what is best for soccer having played the sport since he was four. He loves to coach and believes that the team will do much better this year, saying that they will “win three games for everyone game we lose”.

 Zawistowski also has over seven years of experience coaching soccer at the high school level, though he didn’t get involved in soccer until after high school. He says that the team this year is the best team he’s seen in the past three years.

 “My prediction is that we’re going to be at least first or second place in our conference. I want to say that we are that competitive and we can be that good, but at the same time I think just making it beyond the conference playoffs. I think making it to regionals would be a step in the right direction in comparison to where we were, from there I think [our skills] will show themselves. I think it’s a little early to predict too much, but I would say if we can be in the top two in our conference I’ll feel pretty confident,” said Zawistowski.

 Key players to watch for are senior Olivia Camera playing goalie, junior Maggie Moorcones at defensive midfield, and senior Kristen Patrick at forward.

Key home games to attend are:

Stone Bridge 4/20

Briar Woods 4/4

Tuscarora 4/28

Broad Run 4/18

Link to full schedule:

http://potomacfallsathletics.org/main/team/id/20899