Challenging season energizes Lady Patriots

When a team loses the first game of its season, that game can either set the tone for the rest of the season, or the team can take it as a learning opportunity and come back stronger.

For the Homewood High School girls soccer team, losing to Huntsville in the team’s first game was a “wake up call,” said Eleanor Kyle, who is a senior on the team.

“A lot of us maybe didn’t have the right mindset, or maybe some of us weren’t in the game as much as we should have been,” Kyle said. “We were motivated after that to keep up and not let it get to us. We wanted to prove to everyone and to ourselves that we were worth getting to state.”

When The Homewood Star spoke with the team in March, the team had won the next seven games. This was on top of having a more rigorous schedule this year. This is because some schools moved into Homewood’s area and also because teams in the area become more challenging, said Lilly Lowery, a junior on the team. It’ll be harder to get into the finals this year, Lowery said.

Instead of looking at the challenging schedule as a negative, Frances O’Hare said she looks at it as a good thing.

“It’s caused us to up our game,” she said. “We’re all very motivated and eager to play these hard teams coming up. I think it’s an exciting thing for us to have an opportunity to play them.”

Another challenge is that many teammates are new to varsity this year, Kyle said.

“Compared to JV, varsity is a completely different skill level and mindset,” she said. “I think it definitely was a wakening moment for a bunch of people, but I think many of us have really worked past that. We have great team chemistry, and we have worked well to get past the JV versus varsity level.”

When the team went to play in a tournament in Calera, it had only played two games thus far in the season, and O’Hare said they were still feeling “iffy” with their connections on the team. Nonetheless, the tournament went well and has become one of the girls’ favorite memories of the season so far.

“Everyone gave it their all, which was really difficult to do based on how talented and tired we were by the last game,” she said.

The Lady Patriots’ final game in the tournament was against Bob Jones, a team which O’Hare described as being very good, but the Homewood team had impactful energy on the field. O’Hare said one specific example of this was in Lowery: she was playing center back, and although the strikers on the other team were fast, Lowery didn’t back down from a single ball, O’Hare said.

“It was really motivating,” O’Hare said. “She sets a great example for all of us, and she makes me try harder on the field.”

Homewood defeated Bob Jones 5-0 that game, which O’Hare said has since impacted the team.

“Everyone was pumped up from that big accomplishment, and it’s been carrying us through our practices,” she said. “Everyone’s going a lot harder and trying to pick up the intensity. It’s been fun to collectively pick up our skill level.”

Although there are still improvements to be made, O’Hare said the team is in very good shape because of how hard they’ve been working in the preseason.

“The whole team is pumped and ready for this season and excited for the challenges ahead,” she said.