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By Avery Goldman<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Photo by Avery Goldman<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Willow semi-finalist Lady Lions soccer team has high hopes for this year’s upcoming season, despite losing half of its team. Last year, there were 29 players on varsity, 14 of whom were practiced seniors. However, with those 14 girls now having graduated, the team hopes the remaining teammates and new players can prove themselves a more than adequate replacement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA worry of mine is that we lost 14 players this year,\u201d said sophomore Liliana Gonzalez. \u201cLast season we had lots of seniors, and they were all talented and great. I\u2019m confident in our team, but I\u2019m worried we\u2019re going to have some trouble since half our team graduated.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Another hurdle for the team is that they were moved up from Division Three into Division Two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery couple of years, they reassign the school district based on their size,\u201d sophomore Adelaide Egle explained. \u201cOur school has grown since the last assignment, so we\u2019ve moved up to Division Two and into a new district. Overall, the competition will be much harder than last year, and losing 14 seniors makes that a little more daunting.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Through all these challenges, the girls stay positive and still have hope. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI would say this year, we\u2019re going in with the most chemistry among the team that we\u2019ve had since I’ve been on this team my freshman year,\u201d said Paige Zippert, a senior on the team. \u201cSo I would say, as far as communication goes, it\u2019ll go well this year, especially since all of us are so close-knit.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n An additional positive is that the team, undoubtedly, has an abundance of school spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe player with the most spirit is definitely Paige Zippert,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cShe\u2019s always trying to get us excited for soccer, and she\u2019s always so funny and friendly to talk to. Paige is always there to get us pumped up for games with her before game pep talks.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe team, at least last year, was very spirited and motivated when it came to winning games,\u201d Lilah Matthews, a sophomore, said. \u201cWe gave pep talks to one another and bonded over bus rides to away games. We were really devoted to placing in the season last year, so this year, we are way more passionate about getting even further in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n The girls are pumped up and exhilarated for this season’s upcoming possibilities. Matthews, the team’s goalie, said, \u201cWe\u2019re gonna be great. Go, soccer!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Avery Goldman Photo by Avery Goldman The Willow semi-finalist Lady Lions soccer team has high hopes for this year’s upcoming season, despite losing half<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":765,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archived","two-columns"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/IMG_4516-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":718,"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717\/revisions\/718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willowpostdiluvian.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}