Team comes in with experience

By Dean Wong

With eight seniors and a playoff run from last season, the Ballard Beavers are optimistic about the upcoming girls soccer program.

Last season, the Ballard Beaver girls' soccer team surprised the league, making the playoffs for the first time and earning Val Seid Kingco Coach of the Year honors.

"We will have a lot of experience," said Seid. "Most of the seniors will have been playing four years on varsity."

Seid installed a "possession ball" style of play, which made defenses work harder against the Beavers. With many players on soccer teams year round, this helped Ballard's competitive edge.

This year, Seid would like to see his team score more goals. Ballard won many games on the strength of their defense but did not always score when the opportunities were there.

"We want to be stronger in the mid-field by adding a mid-fielder and add two (players) up top," Seid said. "It's more of an attacking system to get us more goals than last year."

The co-captains are seniors Mikaela Winter and Lucy Miner.

"We are building on a strong season last year," said Miner. "Now that we have a good coach, with a solid program going, we will have success."

"It's going to be good," Winter predicted. "We have some good players. It's really exciting."

Two sisters, now sophomores, are being counted on to help the team. Lauren and Sara Ives played a key role in the wins leading to the playoffs a year ago.

Sara Ives scored four goals against Bothell in a 4-0 win over the Cougars. Two days later against Franklin, Ives added two more goals in a 9-0 win. The high scoring games led to Sara Ives' appearance in Sports Illustrated's high school players of the week page.

As one of Ballard's most talented players, the team is depending on Sara Ives.

"She is very much an attacker," said Seid. "We will try to get her to score some goals for us."

In training camp, Seid felt his team was riding a little bit on last year's winning ways. He wants the Beavers to get back to the level of intensity they showed in 2006.

"We have a lot of experience," he said. "It's a matter of getting the leadership out on the field. Last year we had strong leadership. This year we are still trying to figure out who the leaders will be."

Roosevelt, Redmond, Inglemoor and Lake Washington will pose the stiffest challenge to the Beavers. The league only has four to five returning head coaches, the others are new to KingCo and won't be familiar with the 4A teams.

"We hope to catch them off guard," said Seid. "The girls are very excited, they can't wait for the first game, even though we have work to do. We can't just say it, we have to show it and practice hard."

The Beavers lost four players to graduation: Margaret Coke; multi-sport star Leslie Ellingsen; Stephani Nelson; and Sami Wong.

2007 Schedule

Sept.4, Roosevelt at Summit, 5:30/7:30

Sept.6, Juanita at Summit, 5:30/7:30

Sept.11, Bothell at Pop Keeney, 5:30/7:30

Sept.13, Woodinville, TBA

Sept.25, Redmond at Memorial, 5:30/7:30

Sept.27, Franklin at Memorial,

Oct. 2, Garfield at Memorial, 5:30/7:30

Oct. 4, Inglemoor, away, TBA

Oct. 9, Lake Washington, Summit, 5:30/7:30

Oct. 11, Redmond, away, 5:30/7:30

Oct. 16, Woodinville, away, 5:30/7:30

Oct. 18, Juanita, away, 5:30/7:30

Oct. 22, Bothell, Summit, 5:30/7:30

Oct. 24, Roosevelt, Summit, 5:30/7:30

Times are: jv/varsity