As the 2017 regular SHS girls soccer season ends, the seniors on the team are looking to make their last mark on the program and lead the team in a positive direction.
The Lady Cards have a total of nine seniors on the 2017 squad. The players have struggled with the feeling of continuous loss and defeat for years, as they have never in their years in a Cardinal uniform experienced a winning regular season. In fact, no one who has ever played girls soccer at SHS has, until now.

“Us seniors this year, we were all really determined,” senior co-captain Emily Chambers said. “We wanted to do something special our senior year.”

With the help of the seniors, the team did accomplish some “special” things this year. One of these accomplishments is obtaining the most wins in a season. The previous record was five wins, and this year’s team earned their sixth win on Sept. 11 against Washington Community.

Another accomplishment for the team was the win over township rival Perry Meridian. This was the first time they’ve beaten the Falcons in a regular season game since 1994.

Aside from bringing useful experience, the seniors also bring positivity to the girls on the team according to teammates.

“A lot of our seniors have a really positive attitude, which really helps us when we’re down in games,” sophomore player Kendall Henderson said.

Chambers believes that the seniors are a lot closer to the other girls on the team this year than they have been in previous seasons. This has helped them become better teammates which has shown positive effects on the field in games.

“The seniors and the leaders on the team felt that if we needed to succeed on the field, then we needed to succeed off the field by having better relationships with our teammates,” Chambers said.”

According to head coach Mark Harris, the girls on the team all intermix together, whether it be in drills, during practice or hanging out together outside of soccer.

“Seniors don’t just hang out with seniors,” Harris said. “I’ve got freshmen, sophomores all hanging out with seniors, seniors hanging out with juniors. There’s been a great camaraderie theory with everybody and the seniors have been a big part of that.”

Although the seniors have contributed massively to the positive outcome this season, Harris believes that the team will be just as successful as they were this year next year as well, even without the seniors.

“(The team has) got a great platform, a strong base that has been made with these seniors who were far from not winning any games when they were freshman, to setting a school record of six games this year,” Harris said. “We’re just going to keep building off of that strong base.”