The girls soccer team will compete in its last set of pre-season games before district play in a tournament Jan. 12-14 at Georgetown High School.

“What I want to get out of this is fun and bonding,” head coach Robert Vaughn said. “Going into districts, everything gets really serious. This is the last not-so-serious moment. Really, this is just a fun trip for them to bond.”

The team will play against Tomball, ranked No. 6 in the state, and Woodlands, ranked No. 4 in the state. 

“[We are against] some of the top talent,” Vaughn said. “What makes it even crazier – Flower Mound [and] Marcus – those are in our district. Every team we get to play is ranked. Every night is a competition. We have talent, so does everybody else.” 

Senior Mya Williams said a large number of the girls varsity players are on club teams, so the team has been working on gaining speed and agility rather than practicing technical drills the experienced players are already familiar with. 

“In the weight room, we’ve gotten to do a lot of exercises that target soccer players and strengthen muscles that will help us on the field,” Williams said. “We’ve been doing things like ACL prevention, which is a big thing in women’s sports, and we’ve been doing speed and agility drills that’ll help us athletically. When it comes to technical and tactical things, we already have that down, but just being stronger and faster is going to help us win more games.”

As far as weaknesses go, the team is relatively younger and shorter compared to last year, Williams said. 

“I feel like our team isn’t the biggest compared to last year,” Williams said. “We lost a lot of height, so we compensate by being better on the ball, passing around teams better, first touch, [being] good in the air [and] things like that.”

The team has played two pre-season games – against Reedy and Rockwall Heath – and will play its first district game against Marcus on Jan. 17. 

“It should be exciting and give us an opportunity to learn how to play together and get to know each other on a player level,” Williams said. “I just really hope the season goes well, we all have fun and can go to state.”

While the tournament is still considered pre-season, it will affect the team’s rankings. The team plans on posting results to its Instagram page. Vaughn said one of the strengths that will help the girls in the tournament is the fact that they bond well together.

“They’re a lot closer than most years before,” Vaughn said. “The girls care about each other – that’s huge. We have team bonding. We do all kinds of stuff – movie night, shopping night, ax throwing – just [to] get to know each other and everybody be happy. Once you get everyone caring for each other, the rest just takes care of itself.”