Get the losses out of the way in the preseason and start netting crucial victories once the 4A Kingco season begins.
Redmond High senior co-captains Kelsey Costello and Marianna Castro said this jokingly during practice on Monday afternoon, but realistically, that’s what they were faced with several games into their 2013 campaign.
The Mustangs began league play last night against Garfield High, after the Reporter’s deadline.
“Preseason is for experimenting. We’re seeing what works. When the season starts, that’s when we’ll get into it — we’ll pick it up,” said midfielder Costello, whose team was 1-2-1 in the preseason.
Added goalkeeper Castro: “We had a really bad preseason last year, but once the season started is when we really cracked down and started to do what we needed to do. That’s how we started winning all those games.”
It was a memorable, monumental year for Redmond in 2012.
The Mustangs compiled an 8-1-1 league record (11-5-2 overall) last season, notched the league championship with a 1-0 victory over highly favored Skyline and earned the No. 1 league seed to state (they lost to Curtis, 2-1, in the state opener). Sierra Bilginer’s goal off a Costello assist ended Skyline’s 37-match unbeaten streak and gave Redmond its first league crown in 21 years.
Costello’s eyes light up and she clenches her first a bit when saying that winning Kingco is an “indescribable” feeling. The team pulled together and worked hard to knock off Skyline. They want to be in the position to make an impact again this season and they hope to achieve that with talent and team camaraderie.
“Everybody loves an underdog. We had all the other high schools rooting for us to beat Skyline last year since they were No. 1, and beating them was the greatest feeling ever,” Castro said while smiling.
Castro added that the team is improving with each match this year and overcoming the loss of key graduates Bilginer (first team all-Kingco), Kristin Hayman and Andrea Larson (both second team all-Kingco).
Leading the way this season for coach Patrick Scheibe (19th season) are all-Kingco first-teamers Costello and junior midfielder Kennedy Kieneker, second-teamer Castro and honorable mentions Veronica Chung (defender/forward), Caroline French (defender), Marisa Messina (goalkeeper) and Sidney Nilsen (midfielder), all juniors.
Whether it’s a regular-season game or a state match, Castro said two keys to success are “our mindset before the game, knowing we gotta try our best. You have to go in there and fight in order to win.”
Costello and Castro said they’re always thinking about performing well on the soccer pitch. The girls — who all wear yellow fluorescent T-shirts on game days — talk about soccer during the day at school, Castro has written “Girls Soccer Tonight” on the chalkboard in front of class and Costello tells everyone she sees at school to come out and support the Mustangs.
“I definitely think about the game a lot. On game days in class, sometimes it’s hard to focus,” Castro said.
Added Costello, who scored along with senior forward Sam Wrast in Redmond’s 2-1 victory over Seattle Prep on Tuesday: “It’s always on our mind because we really care a lot about this program. We’ve been playing varsity soccer since we were freshmen, so it’s really important to us. We want to finish our senior year strong and we’re really focusing on getting to that state level.”
Castro feels Redmond soccer is like having another family. It’s a special sisterhood.
“It’s the best. This team, I love it more than anything,” Costello said. “I look forward to Redmond soccer everyday. When the season ends, I get sad and I look forward to the next season as soon as the last game’s over.”
