Work to do for Warrior girls soccer

WINTER GARDEN  With six seniors gone from the prior season, any coach would face some challenges with roster turnover.

But for head coach Stan Banks, his Warriors girls soccer team has faced the challenge of its top two offensive threats of the last four years graduating in 2015: Hannah Zoeltsch and Maddison Skretteberg, who was the third-highest goal-scorer in program history.

“That has been a big hole to fill in our offensive game, because she averaged 19 goals a season for her career,” Banks said. “I've just lost a lot of offense, and now I'm playing with freshmen up top, and in fact, there are times when I have four freshmen in the offense … We are young. I only have one senior starter.”

Junior midfielder Emma Honis has led West Orange High’s attack this season, scoring a record seven goals in one game against Evans and averaging about a goal per game, Banks said.

And though Honis and her teammates scored enough goals to win all six of their district games — with only two goals against, both in a 3-2 win at Dr. Phillips — they have not won a game this season outside the district, going 0-6-1.

“I think that our youth has just a lack of experience that has hurt us,” Banks said. “Also, we have twice as many road games as home games, and that's definitely hurt us. Although we beat Apopka at Apopka and we beat Dr. Phillips at Dr. Phillips, sometimes those games are easier to get up for, and honestly, I've experimented with our formation in our non-(district) games, and so I've definitely coached us out of a few games, but in preparation for trying to figure out the best team we can take to districts.”

Despite the Warriors getting outplayed in most of those games, the results were slightly skewed based on this tinkering, he said. Regardless, he believes his team is not where it must be, as it was outscored 10-3 on a three-game losing streak going into the winter break.

“We definitely have a lot of work to do in a short amount of time before the break,” Banks said. “And I'm not sure sitting out that first (playoff) round is going to be beneficial ... I think we could use the game more than the bye at this point.”

But Banks is grateful to enter the break with no major injuries to his team, healthier than it has ever been during his tenure. This way, the team can spend it refocusing and harnessing the energy and determination it had early this season, he said. 

“I think that it has to start with taking care of business in the district tournament so that we get as favorable a matchup in that first round of regionals,” Banks said. “In other words, we want to go in against the lower seed — the second seed — in the first round of regionals, not taking on the (Class 5A District 3) champion.”

That would be Oviedo, a perennial power ranked fourth in the nation.

But even before districts and a possible rematch with Dr. Phillips in that final, Banks has two games in the first week of January to get his Warriors back on track.

Contact Zak Kerr at [email protected].