The Vicksburg varsity soccer team has a schedule front-loaded with tough teams that are proving to be a real challenge. While scoring has been a premium in the early games, the young squad has kept games close. Their recent road trip to Mattawan, which has been a powerhouse in recent years, showed that.
“We’ve had a rough week, we played four incredibly tough teams, two more tomorrow and then we hopefully kind of get a breather, but the schedule we have never slows down,” Head Coach JT Hageman said. “I’m proud of the girls, they battled, battled, and battled,” “We’ll get through tomorrow and try to get healthy.”
Mattawan has an incredibly talented group of goalies who kept the Bulldogs off the scoreboard all game. However, there were several strong scoring attempts, including a quality attempt by Renna Caswell late in the first half. On the defensive side, freshman goalie Jenna Simon had a strong showing in net all night. She made several key saves that kept the game from being blown wide open.
“Jenna did a great job, she stood on her head against Gull Lake, and she stood on her head again tonight,” Hageman said.
As far as the conference goes, Hageman is expecting Otsego and Plainwell to be two of the tougher teams in the Wolverine. He’s hopeful the Bulldogs can make some noise later in the season.
“The early schedule helps us and hurts us at the same time,” Hageman said. “I think you’re asking a lot of 11 players to go out and battle against some of the top D1 competition, but as we get into the D2 stuff, it prepares us. We’re eyeing a conference title and district title, so hopefully this prepares us well for it.”
