The Lady Wave varsity soccer team had hurdles to jump before league play had even begun, according to coach Kelly Spicer ,who went into detail about the various injuries some of the girls have sustained and how the team has pressed on since.
The Lady Wave was able to pull itself to a 2-3 record despite senior Cheyanne Sweeney being out of play on a sprained ankle since the return of seniors Macy Meyers and Brittany Wallace. Though Meyers and Wallace were unable to play in the tournament at Spring Creek, where Fallon lost 4-0, their presence made all the difference in a 3-0 win against Jerome (Idaho) and the 4-3 shoot-out victory against Elko.
Though the recent losses to league Truckee (3-1) and Lowry (2-0) have posed trouble for the wounded Lady Wave, coach Kelly Spicer is confident that the team will find its way back to status.
“Now that we’re back, we’re going to get our stuff back on track for the league games,” said Spicer, commenting on his aspirations for the Wave in league play. “We still haven’t managed to play with our full team yet due to injuries since we had a small team this year, but that kind of team is more fun to coach sometimes.”
Spicer also said that South Tahoe, Truckee and Lowry will be biggest challenges for the Lady Wave this year just like last season. His basis for improvement practice for the girls this week includes crossing, control in the first touches, and less reluctance to pass to the younger freshmen and sophomore girls since these were weaknesses that led to recent losses. In addition, Spicer acknowledges that one of the key disadvantages the team will have to overcome in light of injuries is its limited size of 16 until Sweeney returns to play.
“Our numbers are smaller because we have the least amount of girls who tried out in any year,” Spicer said. “Some teams have cut more girls than we have period. But our defense has gotten a lot better. We have to get our offense on the same schedule so we can do some damage, and an injury is not an excuse, but who we have is who we have. Like somebody said, Superman’s not coming through the door.”