The Vero Beach High girls soccer team entered the district playoffs this week about as confident as can be after a 10-2-1 regular season that was played almost exclusively on the road.
First-year head coach Daniel Dickens inherited an experienced roster stocked with playoff hardened juniors and seniors. The 2014 team made it to the state championship game and last year the Fighting Indians lost on penalty kicks to Jupiter in the regional semifinals.
VBHS opened the season at 7-0 before Jupiter stopped the streak last month by a score of 2-1 in a District 10-5A match. Jupiter will undoubtedly be the hurdle to overcome in the district tournament. The Warriors secured the top seed at 5-0 while VBHS was one game behind at 4-1.
“The regular season flew by pretty fast,” Dickens said. “The goal I set at the beginning of the year was to come out with a complete team effort. That certainly worked with 17 of the 19 girls contributing to the scoring with either a goal or assist. I wanted to put any player in the game at any time, and that worked. You can win a lot of games with individual play but you won’t win that way in the end when it matters the most.
“That’s been our philosophy and focus all along, so I’m very happy with that so far. When we play at our best it’s just beautiful soccer to watch. I have a lot of players that are soccer savvy after playing the game for so long at such a high level. We have a lot of mature seniors and they know how to handle themselves.
“I believe we have a kind of quiet confidence that we are really going to be able to go pretty far as long as we play like we are supposed to.”
Dickens identified one trouble spot along the way. “We were dead tired against some top teams in competitive tournaments. But when we were fresh we played with anybody out there. I truly believe that on fresh legs we can play with any team in the state of Florida.”
Fatigue shouldn’t be a factor in the playoffs. The only regular-season game scheduled at the Citrus Bowl (an earlier home game was played at Hobart Complex) was rained out last week. That gave Dickens a full week to prepare his team for the playoff opener. His players should be well rested and ready to go.
“This is probably the best team I’ve ever played on in high school or club soccer,” said senior Cate Taylor, back with the varsity for her senior year after two seasons with club teams. “I’ve known these girls for so long that there’s some kind of magic or spark we have whether it’s on the field, or in the locker room, or on the bus. We sing songs and hang out all the time.
“We communicate really well off the field so it’s a lot easier to do when we are actually playing a game. I believe that’s why we play so well. And we all have good basic knowledge about the game of soccer.
“I play center defense with (senior) Hannah Hartline. We can see the entire field, and along with the goalie (junior Ashley Campbell), we definitely make sure we are talking and working together. We are the eyes and ears for the defense and we don’t want a breakdown to happen.
“There is nothing that is going to stop us but ourselves. If we work together and keep that determined mindset we can go as far as we want. We know we can do it.”
The defense has certainly been doing it.
“Phenomenal,” Dickens said about a defense that allowed only three goals in five district games. “We just don’t give up many opportunities. Sometimes I might put down three or four saves on the stat sheet, and those might have been balls that just rolled to our goalkeeper. In general we’ve stopped the fast transition and played team defense. I just sit back and trust our defenders. I’m not even worried. It’s been a great thing because that’s what you want to build your team around.”
While offensive punch is spread through the ranks, senior standout Nicole McClain is a player to watch. Dickens also found a few late-season minutes for freshman keeper Lucia Romero to add backup at that position should the need arise.
“We always talk about depth and every position on the field has depth,” Dickens told us. “No matter where I plug in players they know instinctively who is there and what they need to do.”
