The girls varsity soccer team is preparing for its winter season in high spirits, despite the loss of some of its current senior players.
Girls have not chosen to compete on the team this year for a variety of reasons. Many seek to avoid injury that may hinder their college playing careers. Instead,  they choose to play only for their club teams which have come to receive much more recruiting that high school teams.
“Some girls’ club teams won’t allow them to play high school at all,”  junior Katie Winters said. “Other girls then choose not to play because they don’t think the team will be that strong.”
This creates a cycle in which girls choose not to play because they feel the team will not be very good which results in a weakened team and missed opportunities for girls to enjoy their last years of high school sports.
“A few girls, most being seniors, aren’t coming out this year,” junior Paige Eller said. “It’s unfortunate because we lost some really good players. It also meant that we had to bring up a lot of freshmen and sophomores, so we have a really young team.”
Although such youth offers great hope for the future of the team, it will certainly miss some of its senior veteran experience. Head coach Armando Luna, however, will focus his attention solely towards the players that did come out.
“I am not sure why any player has decided not to come out this season but I just focus on the players that are out there on the field,” Luna said. “Every season my goals and expectations are develop the players as best I can and to play a free flowing, attack minded, entertaining style of soccer.”
The team is also introducing a new formation this year in order to strengthen its offense or defense depending on the situation. This formation will be much more attack minded.
“The biggest game is definitely going to be against Mountain View,” junior Julia Goupil said. “They were division 1 CCS champions last year. Los Gatos will also be a great team since they were runner-ups in CCS, losing to Mountain View. Our biggest challenge is going to be the fact that we are such a young team in a very tough league. It’s going to be difficult to maintain our composure and get results.”