'It's a good environment here': Flagler Palm Coast freshmen thriving with senior leadership

PALM COAST — When a freshman athlete makes an immediate impact, it’s often easy to forget that despite early success, everything is still a transition.

And those adjustments aren’t required only on the field, the court or in the case of a bunch of Flagler Palm Coast ninth graders, the pitch.

“I don’t always finish my homework during school, I normally do it in my free time at home but after practice, I’m just so tired,” Bulldogs youngster Ivy Chen said.

While classroom studies may be presenting a challenge, the team’s youth movement has passed every soccer test thus far.

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That included Tuesday night as Chen registered a goal and an assist in a 3-0 FPC win at rival Matanzas. Seniors Kaitlyn Steiner and Heidi Michaels each scored a goal as well.

After a 1-0 loss at New Smyrna Beach on Wednesday, the Bulldogs stand at 6-3-1 but some tougher days could lie ahead. Early in Tuesday’s win against the Pirates, senior co-captain Savannah O’Grady went down with a knee injury and while no immediate diagnosis was known, she didn’t return and didn't play Wednesday either.

Should O’Grady, who had scored a team-high 11 goals and dished out a pair of assists, miss significant time, a bigger burden will be placed on the team’s youth. Luckily for FPC and coach Pete Hald, the group seems prepared to shoulder the load if needed.

“They’re aggressive, they’re competitive and they’re good at the same time,” Hald said. “Maybe even a little too aggressive at times but I’d rather try to reel that in than produce it.”

He didn’t single out left wing Katherine Ouellette when making the remark on Tuesday, but certainly, it was inferred. Ouellette played with a physical, unrelenting edge that seemed to drive the team through some missed opportunities on Tuesday and she admitted that chip on her shoulder has been developed over time.

“I used to play centerback,” Ouellette explained. “I didn’t really like it, but I feel like I got a lot of my aggression from playing defense.

“I was looking forward to playing this game. They’d been talking a lot and I wanted to prove to them we could pull out a win.”

Ouellette entered Wednesday’s game with the Barracudas with two goals and Chen had contributed three. Fellow freshmen Hailey Sammons, Lauralee Macleod and Skylar Strickland had each scored one as well. Macleod, Sammons, Ouellette and Chen all started on Tuesday with Brianna Long and Marlee O’Fallon, also ninth graders, on the comeback trail from injury.

All told there are eight freshmen on the Bulldogs’ roster and it’s a group of players that seem to be gelling.

“I like playing with them because we’re good at communicating, finishing shots and connecting really well,” Ouellette said.

“There’s so many of us coming in on varsity and that’s really important and our JV freshmen, they’re good as well,” Chen said. “With our senior class leaving, because we have a lot of seniors too, our freshmen will be very important to our team.”

To Chen’s point, the future of the program lies largely with this group. While the Bulldogs have been very good in recent seasons, they’ve been swallowed up in a region that is also home to Bartram Trail and Creekside, which have combined to win the last four Class 7A state championships.

Whether or not this group is the one that finally breaks that trend remains to be seen. And FPC’s success this year will likely still hinge heavily on O’Grady’s health and the performance and leadership of its current upperclassmen like Steiner, Michaels and third co-captain Ariana Johnson among others.

But so far, so good.

“Knowing all of our upperclassmen, they support me and comfort me if I mess up,” Chen concluded. “I think it’s a good environment here.”

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: High school soccer: FPC freshmen group bring bright future to Bulldogs