The DCHS Lady Tigers Soccer Team hosted the DeKalb County Preseason Soccer Play Day at the high school last Saturday, playing three teams in four shortened games. The games were 40 minutes each with no halftime, with the top four teams playing at the end for the championship.
For the first game, DeKalb took on rival Cannon County in a game that made the young and inexperienced Lady Tigers look good. Angeles Soto scored early in the game, giving DeKalb the lead. From there, the team never looked back, scoring three more goals in the 40-minute game.
Haliegh Bass had not one, but two goals, before Kamien Sparks came in with a goal that would mark the final score of the game. The Lady Tigers came away with the first round win, 4-0. Soto and Jerica Braswell each had assists in the game.
In DeKalb’s second game, the Lady Tigers took on Macon County and continued what looked to be a dominate day for the team. Haleigh Bass, Angeles Soto, and Lydia Trail each scored a goal in the game, shutting out Macon, 3-0.
For the third game of the day for the Lady Tigers, the team faced White County in a game that came down to the last couple of minutes. It was a tight game, but White managed to get a goal with only two minutes left on the clock. White took the victory, 1-0.
In the end, second place DeKalb would face first place White County again for the day’s title. In that match-up White County would again prevail, taking down the Lady Tigers 4-0.
"I feel like we did pretty well," said Lady Tigers Head Coach Dylan Kleparek. "With our first group in there, they really looked organized, they really looked like they knew what they were doing. They passed the ball well and did the things I wanted them to do. They weren’t perfect, but they made the plays and knew where the ball should go."
In keeping with the theme of several school sports this season, Coach K is looking at a young team with no returning seniors. But he says the drive and leadership of the young players is going a long way. "They looked energetic and fired up," Coach K said. "We’ve got a really young group and they were nervous, but you could see some of the nerves work out in the first couple of minutes."
"We’ve got a young team," Coach K continued. "We have no seniors, but we’ve got some good junior leaders, and some good sophomore leaders coming back, as well as some really good freshmen talent. They’re young and inexperienced and, for some of them, this was their very first time on a soccer field during a game."
Coach K said the Play Day games were a good way to test the team in a game setting. "It’s good to start out against Cannon County, a district opponent, but at the same time a weaker opponent that we can build upon. Not to say that they’re not a good team, they’ve got some really good players and I can see them improving a lot this year, but we’ve got some AAA schools here that challenges us more."
"We’ve got this play day to kind of build experience for the year, but if you think about it, we have this whole year and we’ll get everybody back next year. It’s exciting. Not that we’re overlooking this year. We plan to be good this year and one of our goals is to make it to that district championship again. We want to get back to that form. So we’re working hard to get there."
The summer months have been busy for Coach K in more ways than one. The coach recently added a new member to his family, a son Julian Andrew. "He’s about three months old," Coach K said. "He’s a little cutie."
The Lady Tigers first game was Tuesday, with their next match-up between Central Magnet in Murfreesboro on Thursday.