Young Blue Streaks 'in a season of turnover'
Oct. 10—Madison girls soccer coach Chad Butler has a young team that can score goals to win a game.
His team entered this week with a 4-9-1 record and has played a tough schedule, including matchups against Solon and NDCL.
"Of our four wins, only one we had less than five goals," Butler said. "If we can get out in front, we can hold it."
Defensively though, it's been a struggle at times especially after his starting goalkeeper had to sit out the season due to a blood cut in her lungs. Other players have gotten hurt or are not playing this season due to other reasons.
"In the first game of the season, we tied Mentor after going down by 2, and that was on a Friday," Butler said. "By that Sunday, I had effectively lost three of my starters for the season."
The Blue Streaks have 24 players on the roster with two seniors and four juniors.
"We're extremely young, seven of my 11 starters are sophomores or freshmen," Butler said, who is in his ninth season as head coach. "We're definitely in a season of turnover."
Sophomore Reese Meister is an exciting player who is leading the team with 15 goals, he said.
"She's very fast and did some good things in track too," Butler said.
Another sophomore, Zoey Deligianis, is a midfielder who leads the team in assists and typically plays all 80 minutes without needing to come out of the game, he said.
"This year, by necessity we've been a little more counter-attacking in our approach," Butler said. "Usually, we're very locked down in the back and kind of rely solely on our defense and kind of squeak through with one or two goals to win the game."
Butler said his team is filled with selfless players who want to do anything to help the team.
Senior goalkeeper Emma MacAdam embodies that spirit as she moved from her midfielder position to fill the void at goalie, he said.
"We didn't have another keeper so with one of my best midfielders, we had to drop her back to keeper, so we lost on two fronts on that one," Butler said.
Senior Sammi Kistler, a defender who joined the team during her junior year, is the team's other senior player.
Butler is pleased his seniors have made it a point to help their younger teammates improve during the season by encouraging them to play with confidence while working to manage their nerves.
"Next year we're going to win a lot of games and a lot of it is because of who my seniors let this team be this year," Butler said. "It isn't going the way we thought it was going to go, especially after that first game but my seniors are selfless and helped to let them grow. It's a shame the seniors won't get to see the fruits of their labor [this year], but next year, they're going to know a lot of our success was because of them."
With that said, the team's goal hasn't changed for this year, Butler said.
"Our goal every year is to try to get to the district finals," he said. "Last year, we got to the district finals and this year it will be a tough climb, but the goal doesn't change."
