By Bruce Karnick

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With the fall high school sports seasons beginning this week, many of the teams were holding captain’s practice during the official ‘no contact period’ for coaches, including the girl’s soccer team. Maddy Daley and Bella Meier took a few moments from leading practice to give us a quick rundown.

The Raiders are returning a lot of juniors and seniors this year, according to Daley.

“I think (there are) 18. Yeah, we have a lot of juniors and seniors.”

“It’s our last year so I’m excited to play with my friends for the last year, enjoy it and hopefully go a little further than we did last year,” added Daley.

Daley then explained that during captains practice, they are really working on building the team mentality, have everyone united and help the underclassmen feel comfortable in the system and with the older girls. She explained that tryouts start this week and wrap up by Wednesday, meaning the girls should know their teams spots by Thursday sometime.

Meier expanded on the team unity aspect of captain’s practice.

“The coaches main goals this year is to have more inclusivity, so we’re just trying to incorporate that into our captains practice. We have things every day, and we’re having, like, serious focus but then we’re also trying to make it fun. Friday we’re gonna have a World Cup Day, or we might have a cookout or something. Just incorporate and get everyone to just know everyone.”

Meier recently signed a commitment letter to play soccer for division one St. Thomas next year and she spoke about the recruitment process.

“It’s been good. It’s been a long journey. We’ve been recruited forever. Just with the recruiting process, it’s been stressful, but it’s been good. Our process was a little unique. Since we could talk to coaches freshman year, and before but then they changed the rule.”

The rule change she referred too was a change at the NCAA level. Going into her sophomore year, the NCAA made the rule that recruiting cannot happen until the student is entering their junior year, so the recruiting was put on hold for Meier.

Meier is planning on studying something related to premed so initially she is leaning toward a major in Chemistry. She is currently applying to the Honors Program. If she does well, her scholarship could end up being a full scholarship.

The start of the Raiders practice season with coaches was August 16. Their first game is scheduled for Thursday, August 26 at 7:00 p.m. against Bloomington Jefferson at home. They also host a scrimmage starting at 9:00 a.m. at the high school on Saturday, August 20.

Captain Bella Meier observes drills during captain’s practice at Todd Field. Photo by Bruce Karnick