Young Berlin Girl's Soccer Team Learning After Opening Loss

When the Berlin girl's soccer team took on state power Glastonbury in its opener, head coach Steve Yanosy had no idea what to expect. Glastonbury was expected to be a top team in the state this season and his Redcoats had lost 16 seniors from last years team.

What he saw was an experienced Glastonbury team dominate Berlin for a 4-0 win.

Since then, however, the young Redcoats are unbeaten, going 3-0-1.

"We had a nice win yesterday against Platt," Yanosy said. "We won 1-0 when Cat Voelpel scored in the second half on a Michelle Grieco cross. We are now 3-1-1 overall and 3-0-1 in our league.

"We are coming along. We are seeing improvement every day. Our goal this year is to get better every day and to work hard as a team. So far, we are seeing that pay off in wins. We also have had some very nice contributions from everyone this year. Whether it is a girl coming off the bench for 5 minutes or from someone playing 80. We have played some great soccer in stretches but we need to but have not played a consistent 80 minutes of soccer yet."

The Berlin roster is dotted with a bunch of freshmen and some who start. 

"Yes we are playing several freshman," Yanosy said. "They have been doing well adjusting to high school soccer. At first everyone of them was surprised by the strength and physicality of our opponents but now we are ready for the task.  Our team as a whole is young compared to last years, which had 16 seniors.  So we have a lot of girls playing serious varsity minutes for the first time in their soccer careers.

While the team is extremely young, the four seniors have been tremendous leaders according to Yanosy.

"Our seniors have been great and are really a great group of leaders," he said. "Bianca Jacques, Cat Voelpel, Shannon Mahoney, and Cassidy Goodwin all bring a different personality to the table and it makes for a really nice mix of leadership. They have been great leaders and have done a great job so far.  We are about 30 percent done with our season but are looking to improve a lot in the coming weeks."