It’s their game

Go ahead and ask Deidre Deacon where one of those vaunted underclassmen is. Ask her which one would be good to talk to — you know, give you the whole scoop on why, all of a sudden, Wilson Memorial girls soccer sports nine sophomores and freshmen on its roster. Why they are producing. Why, when local soccer fans talk about the Green Hornet girls, they curl their lips and give you that wait-until-next-year smirk.
So, yeah, you know putting one of those upperclassmen in charge of picking out someone to talk to you is a tough assignment, and the junior is taking her time.
“Hmm,” Deacon mumbles, her arms, still sweaty from practice, folded across her chest as she scans a gaggle of freckles and braces packing their bags on the other side of the pitch.
If this were a school dance, you’d know these girls are underclassmen, holding up the wall, afraid to head out on the floor. But they’re not afraid to battle it out on the pitch.
“How about,” Deacon says before stopping herself. “McCauley. McCauley.”
One of the freshmen turns, smiles and walks over. Face twisted into a smile to expose blue (yes, blue) braces. She juts out her hand and you shake it.
“Nice to meet you,” she manages to say between giggles. “I’m McCauley Vailes.”
This is one of the underclassmen at Wilson Memorial. This is the first generation of true soccer players in Fishersville. One of the many who could lift Wilson into the same sentence as Buffalo Gap and Riverheads. One of the girls who are going to be thrust into the Southern Valley when Wilson is bounced up a group to AA.
She’s 14 and she’s wearing braces.
* * *
“This year is fun,” Deacon says. She knows fun in sports when she sees it — the junior is less than three months removed from a basketball season that saw her act as the keystone in the arc formed by Julie and Marla Young.
The Hornets rode the three all the way to the Group A, Division 2 tournament, and all three happen to be on the Hornets’ soccer team. The Youngs (with Julie toggling between midfield and defender and Marla secured as the team’s goalkeeper) are the lone seniors.
“But I’m really looking forward to the years to come,” she says. “The soccer program is going to be great in a few years.”
Deacon is one of five juniors, the rest are the young ones coach Scott Crist is talking about.
And she’s right. Most of the younger girls sport Augusta Futbol Club shirts and talk about their time together on travel teams. Sure, you might be talking to freshmen and sophomores, but you’re not talking to rookies. Not by any stretch. You’re talking to soccer players, kids dribbling around on the pitch since they were 5, 6- or 7 years old. The veteran skills shine through. They speak with bravado, calling a 2-2 tie to perennial Shenandoah District powerhouse Riverheads the best game they played all season.
On the flipside, the team’s 1-0 loss to Buffalo Gap, another team stuck in the upper echelon of district soccer, was a loss that shouldn’t have happened if you take the girls’ word for it.
Deacon said the team’s heart wasn’t in that game. “It was the Friday before prom,” she says, and it showed.
“We shouldn’t have lost to Gap,” Deacon says. “Our focus before the game, coach said it was off. And the game did prove him right.”
Vailes, sophomores Paige Allison and Angelica Thacker and freshman Hannah Myers all agreed.
“We shouldn’t have lost,” they say, almost in unison.
Bravado? Sure. Cockiness? Maybe. How about pride? This, after all, is the Shenandoah District, where you don’t hear the end of any loss to a county rival, and chants of “We won football” probably break out when Riverheads is blasting Gap at a forensics meet.
“The older kids,” Myers says, “they’re good, but they go to basketball.”
For the youngsters on the team it’s soccer.
“This is our sport,” Myers says.
Crist, the team’s first-year coach, listens a few feet away and smiles. He’s got to love hearing this and the smile gives him away.
* * *
Crist’s staff takes over practice and the tall coach takes the whistle from his mouth, finally. Former Waynesboro soccer standout Chris Kanney is leading the girls in a practice game, no doubt one he learned while playing for the University of Richmond or from his days with the Little Giants.
Crist watches and smiles, occasionally barking orders of “move, move, move,” or “pass, pass, pass.”
“We’re looking to shoot here, ladies,” he says. “Not to pass.”
Then he turns his attention away from the pitch toward the two matches that have people talking about his team.
“The Riverheads game was the best one we’ve played all season,” he says before leaning down and sending his voice into a loud whisper that’s not fooling anybody. “We should have won against Buffalo Gap.”
Sure, his team has run out to a 5-4-1 start with a 1-1-1 Shenandoah record, but it’s a young team and they’ve still got some things to learn.
“We’re trying to get them to play hard every time they’re on the field,” he says. “They have to give their best effort every night. You have to respect every opponent.”
That could be the problem, Vailes says. For all the 6-1, 7-1 and 5-1 victories over the likes of Parry McCluer, Bath County and Stonewall Jackson, there’s that loss to Buffalo Gap, a pair to future Southern Valley District rival Waynesboro and one to Madison County.
“I think when we play higher teams, we play to their level,” Vailes says without the hint of a giggle (finally). “When we play lower teams, we stoop to their level.
“It’s a mental thing.”
And it’s something that Crist is working on stopping when he repeats what seems to be a favorite refrain: “We have to play hard,” he pumps his left arm to hammer the point home. “Every night.”
Then he turns and smiles.
“Next few years,” he says, “they’re looking bright.”
* * *
As practice ends, the girls start to shuffle away. Mini vans zip into the gravel parking lot to pick up the younger kids as juniors and seniors hop into the driver sides of cars. Vailes and the other young players hang around a bit as they wait for mom or dad to pick them up.
Folks, they’re serious about soccer. They’re not kidding when they talk about it being their sport.
This is what we’ve been hearing about for years — the young American soccer players that are filling up travel teams and summer leagues. The kids that haven’t used their hands in a sport since they were toddlers.
“Soccer is my life,” Myers says.
And Vailes wants to keep it that way.
“I kind of want to get a scholarship, so, I mean, I’m trying to work as hard as I can,” she says, giggling again and flashing those blue braces.
That’s not pressure. That’s not bravado. That’s a 14-year-old girl with a goal.
“I always try to work myself as hard as I can.”
With practice done, Crist picks up an orange cone off the practice field, turns and looks at the girls waiting in the lot. He’s 40 yards away, but you can still see his smile. He knows next year is just around the corner.