In high school sports, rebuilding seasons are an occasional fact of life.
The Sheridan girls soccer team is going through that right now. The Blackhawks’ roster trends decidedly young, with six freshmen and six sophomores on the roster list of 17 players. Two seniors and three juniors round out the list.
“The future looks bright, but right now, we’re playing for the seniors and playing each day,” said Sheridan coach Brian Prange. He noted that the Blackhawks seniors, Jillian Tomlinson and Grace Killion, had never played soccer before. But Prange said they stepped right in and are fitting in with the team.
“We’re trying to have them have a great first year of soccer ever, and we’re building for the juniors for next year,” said Prange.
Sheridan is 0-4 for the season, and that includes a 4-1 loss to Frankfort in a Wednesday home game. The Blackhawks trailed 2-0 at halftime, and the Hot Dogs added another goal early in the second half.
Sophomore Chaney Smith scored Sheridan’s goal with around 24 minutes left in the game, with sophomore Emily Weddington making the assist. The Blackhawks had other chances as well and battled to the end.
Frankfort was a tough opponent for Sheridan, as the Hot Dogs hold a 5-1 record. Earlier in the season, the Blackhawks played county rival Hamilton Heights, which is currently undefeated and ranked No. 10 in Class 2A.
“Even though the results haven’t been what we wanted, there’s always a picture that the girls are seeing, what we do in practice,” said Prange. “The philosophy of us wanting to get in front of the ball faster. We’re just creating habits.”
Smith’s goal marked the first time that a non-freshman player found the back of the net for the ‘Hawks. Three freshmen – Kadence Vogie, Isabell Nunez and Emma Alexander – have all scored one.
Killion has 34 goalkeeper saves, while sophomore Hailey Godby has 21 saves.
“The process of the last two years, we didn’t have a big upperclassmen group, so the freshmen had to take a lot of lumps early,” said Prange. “And this year’s sophomores can see the major progress from last year. The freshmen still are having these little moments like ‘Oh, my gosh, what just happened?’ And the next game, they kind of figure it out, but they have another scenario, and the juniors and seniors are trying to work them through it.”
Sheridan may be a work in progress, but the progress is going in the right direction – “there’s a lot of positives going into each game,” said Prange.
The Blackhawks play their next two games on the road, traveling to Western Boone today and Faith Christian on Tuesday. Sheridan has added a game next Wednesday, Sept. 9, hosting Beech Grove.
Hamilton Southeastern, ranked No. 3 in Class 3A, played to a 0-0 tie at Avon in a Wednesday Hoosier Crossroads Conference game.
The Royals had 14 shots and eight corner kicks, but could not get a goal against the Orioles.
“Avon played incredible defense and really hustled for 80 minutes,” said Southeastern coach Greg Davidson.
The Royals will play two home games on Saturday against teams from Evansville, taking on defending 2A No. 3 Mater Dei, the defending 2A state champion. Southeastern will also play 3A No. 8 Reitz.