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Greencastle, North Putnam soccer teams get summer boons from middle school programs, better summer schedules ahead of 2022 season
Just two weeks separate high school athletes, coaches and staffs from the start of the 2022-23 IHSAA fall sports season, and the anticipation will only continue to build until the green light is lit.
For some, the start of the summer has meant wall-to-wall work to get ready for the upcoming season.
The county soccer teams have moved at their own paces through June with some using the month to get their running legs back under them and others looking to get in the tactical work needed to be ready come Aug. 1.
Each team is replacing numerous seniors from the 2021 season but the emergence of middle school programs is helping both Greencastle and North Putnam fill in the ranks quickly.
This has meant more athletes are out for summer work, something that was noticeable for Cougar girls’ head coach Allison Everman.
“It’s actually been pretty good,” Everman said about summer attendance. “We’ve had a good turnout this summer as, during June, we usually have lower numbers because other sports are going on.
“Even with that, the numbers still weren’t as bad as we were expecting. At least half the team or more has been out at practices since June 1.”
The influx of younger players being at the early summer workouts has meant a chance to get in additional work beyond the normally scheduled activities according to Everman.
“During workouts, we mainly focus on doing conditioning and not so much skill building,” Everman noted. “However, we usually have our less experienced players in June, so we get more one-on-one time with them to work on skills, especially our incoming freshmen.
“Our more experienced players are usually out at other sports so we’re not as worried about conditioning with them. Once we get past Moratorium Week, we want the girls used to playing in the weather as most of our games are played in this heat.”
Beyond getting in shape, Everman said the younger players who attend the early practices get some of the jitters of moving up from middle school to high school out of the way early.
“It helps the younger girls to see my coaching style and for them to become teammates as quickly as possible,” Everman said. “When the younger girls first come in, they’re usually pretty intimidated and nervous as it’s a big shift between middle school soccer and varsity soccer, so we try to ease them in.
“Post moratorium, we have them feeling more confident and secure in their roles and we get more out of them when we focus on skill building. They get along better with everyone as they’re not worried about the big bad senior but rather feel like they belong and are part of the team.
“It’s getting rid of the first day of high school feeling,” Everman added. “The early summer allows them time to transition.”
Eventually, Everman said more of the experienced players become available later in the summer, which allows for the returning players to turn into mentors for their younger counterparts.
“We usually have the younger girls buddying up with more experienced players at this stage during drills as now, we’re focused more on drills and less on conditioning,” Everman said. “It’s really just getting into the ebb and blow of the team unit, not as individuals.
“By now, the majority of the girls feel comfortable enough to ask questions, make mistakes and improve from those mistakes. From my perspective, this time is about seeing where they are strong and where they are struggling as there’s often more than one girls who is having a problem with something and we can separate them out into groups to work on this skill or that issue.”
Most importantly, in Everman’s eyes, the July practices give members of the team to learn about one another and find the most effective ways to build up a rapport that will be necessary on the field once games start.
“It’s really important to build the team unit before the mandatory weeks of practice,” Everman said. “The most important task on the field is to be able to communicate with one another and the girls have to trust in and talk with each other so they can learn in and adjust in the middle of games.
“We want them to learn now prior to those first two weeks as the first game makes a statement as a team, rather than at an individual level. That first game gives us an idea of how they will play as a team and if we wait for the first two weeks to get used to each other, it doesn’t allow the girls a lot of time to build a lot of trust in one another.”
Greencastle
The Tiger Cubs formally introduced middle school soccer teams in 2021, and the effects have already been pronounced according to girls’ head coach Scott Monnett.
“This summer has been different,” Monnett said. “With the addition of the middle school program, unlike the past three seasons where there’s been a lot of learning and a bigger learning curve for our freshmen coming in, we’ve been able to ramp up a lot faster and move into things we probably didn’t do until the second half of the summer or after the first official practice.
“These freshmen have been committed since January, coming into the weight room sessions. It’s been fun to have a little bit more contact at practices and the scrimmage we held before the break was a good test.”
Monnett said attendance had been very good throughout the summer, balancing practices and workouts around giving the athletes plenty of time to enjoy the break.
“On average, we have 18-to-20 a session,” Monnett said. “We had a bit fewer than that earlier in the summer but a few girls have come back from vacation and I always try to work around work schedules.
“My biggest goal is for them to get a lot of good work in but they’re also high school students with families and we want them to have a life in the summer as well. It’s not all just about soccer.”
Because of the amount of knowledge already being brought in by the incoming freshmen group, Monnett said there was less work on basics and more work being done getting the team up to speed, important for a group that started with six-straight losses before finishing the 2021 season 7-2-1.
“With a reduced learning curve, unlike in years past, we’ve only had maybe three players that have never played before, which is a vast difference to the past three seasons,” Monnett pointed out. “We’re entering an age at Greencastle where we have a lot of experience with girls coming through PCSYL and other programs so, where in years past I might have been teaching how to pass or how to trap, we can move beyond that.
“A practice for us might include a lot of ball handling, passing, possession work, one-on-one defensive drills, footwork, positioning and shooting, which has been a focus for us this year as we lacked in that last year. Possession has been a focus for us this summer, as well as linking passes.
“The other thing it’s allowed us to do is that, even with only four seniors, our on the field experience is still very high and the girls are able to coach, push themselves and challenge each other to get better, which allows us to get better faster.”
Boys’ Soccer
North Putnam
Among those with a more standard summer, the Cougars have been busy trying to quickly fill in several key slots around the starting lineup and head coach Kyle Morgan said the team was moving steadily in the right direction.
“Our summer has been good,” Morgan said. “We know what we lost, so we have to retool and get ready for the upcoming season.
“Our numbers and participation have been good and we’ve building up every week.”
Morgan said the workouts followed a pretty simple structure and the players were aware of what sort of work was needed each day in order to continue to build off three-straight winning seasons.
“We’ve been practicing three days a week and lifting three or four days a week,” Morgan said. “We’re continuing to build the system up.
“We know what it takes to win in Class A soccer at this point and a lot of the work comes during the summer. We’re looking to build continuity, build up players into positions and build up leadership skills for the gentlemen who haven’t had those opportunities yet. We’re building consistency for August.”
Now into July, Morgan said most of the players had gotten into a groove and were now adjusting to what will be the style of play for the upcoming season.
“Things feel like they kick up a notch as Moratorium Week ends as we know the new season is about to begin,” Morgan said. “We know a lot of guys haven’t played a ton since October, so in June, we’re building fundamentals, shaking off the rust, learning the patterns of play and gradually building up the intensity.
“Post moratorium, there’s more work put in towards learning the formation we play, the style we want to play, fitting guys into positions and once we’ve done that, things become more concrete.”
With several key members of the squad gone from the 2021 team, Morgan said the incoming seniors had to step up even more than last season while those looking to get game time were benefiting from the time during the summer to work with the rest of the squad.
“We graduated the guys we did, which included a lot of starters and guys off the bench,” Morgan said. “That said, we still have seven upperclassmen who all lettered and all contributed a lot.
“Those guys fill in some of those empty spots, then we have a goalkeeper spot to fill. Once we’ve done that, we fill the rest of the positions on the field and go from there.”
Greencastle
Though the Tiger Cub boys might be a little slower to get up and running, head coach JD Sims said the calendar flip from June to July was the time for the switch to flip.
“It’s been good,” Sims said. “We usually don’t start until a little later in the summer, going on and off starting in early to mid June, doing mostly conditioning, which includes running, pushups, exercise and so on.
“We started practicing in the week leading up to our camp at Anderson, have now been to camp and will just be getting into the groove the next couple of weeks. We still don’t have everyone with vacation, camps and other things but for the most part, we’re digging into it right about now.”
June workouts were more for conditioning according to Sims, who said the flow of younger kids into the team this season was a positive development.
“It depends but we’ve usually had a good 70 percent of our kids showing up,” Sims said. “We’ve had a lot of freshmen and younger kids coming while quite a few kids have reached out and said they’re playing travel ball or with a club soccer team, things we have no problem with, as long as they’re getting exercise.”
By the same token, Sims added the team was assessing athletes more than in past seasons with the amount of turnover having happened since 2021.
“We’re focusing on a lot of first touch and fundamental stuff,” Sims said about practices. “With losing so many seniors last year, we have a large gap between our old and young kids.
“We have quite a few freshmen out, around 10 kids or so, so it’s getting everybody on the same page and up to date. We’re figuring out where to put kids, who is earning playing time and who needs to work on different things.
“There’s a lot more observation going on this summer, more than we’re used to,” Sims added.
A recent camp at Anderson University was a bonus in preparing for the upcoming season with Sims saying both the players and coaches learned a great deal from the recent weekend of practices and matches.
“We’d have two practice sessions each day, working with coach Felix (Yau), someone who works at a pretty high club level and with Carmel High School,” Sims said about the camp. “We ran through drills and Felix asked me what I wanted to see specifically, though I wanted to see what he did as a whole.
“The kids and I both learn while we’re at Anderson; they learn through drills and work and I learn from experienced coaches. We also had a game each night and stayed at the dorms; the kids made friends with kids from schools we won’t normally see on the schedule.
“Soccer is fun but the team bonding aspect is just as important,” Sims added. “It’s like a weird three-day sleepover with extensive soccer training, which is good for morale and a good chance to learn a different perspective from a different coach.”