On Friday, April 10. the Waterloo Girls Soccer Team, a collection of girls from both East High School and West High school competed in their first home soccer game at Waterloo Memorial Stadium against the Mason City River Hawks. Unfortunately, the Waterloo Soccer Team ended up falling short to the River Hawks 8-1.
Assistant Coach Anastasia Muell states that, “Despite struggles in the past, I’m optimistic about this season! I’ve seen these girls play really hard and have so much fun. They’re a really great team, and they’re so great at being optimistic even in the fact of pressure from others who have seen our past season and expect the same from us this year.”
With nine seniors on the Varsity team this year, several of them have stuck around through different Head and Assistant Coaches. During the 2022-2023 season, the team welcomed head coach Beth Huber, a University of North Carolina Women’s Soccer Alum who played for the team from 1981-1984. In the teams 19-1 season in 1983, she played 1,536 minutes, only allowing ten goals with 13 shutouts.
With the team going 5-13 during her first year on staff, tensions were high on whether she would be able to pull off being a head coach despite her previous experience. After the 2023-2024 season ended with a record of 3-14, the team was once again left looking for a new coach.
Last year, during the 2024-2025 season, Ibrahim Sabanagic joined the program as the new head coach ending the season with a record of 0-17. While we won’t be able to see how this season turns out just yet, one thing is true for teams that combine schools from different locations. They often don’t have the same chemistry as teams with athletes who were developed from a young age, practicing with the same teammates everyday for multiple days a week. As a result, these united teams are forced to create a chemistry that some of the players may already have with each other from playing club sports in years prior.
Senior Team Caption Allison Iverson shares, “Teams that aren’t like East and West may have some advantages because they’ve most likely played together longer. When our soccer teams combined, we didn’t know each other, or know how we would all play together. Other teams would know what positions others played and what their skill levels are, so it makes it easier to have that chemistry on the field. All of the girls on the East-West girl’s soccer team get along greatly, we are now working on our chemistry on the field. We are improving, it just takes time. Other teams may not have the type of bond that our team does, we get along outside of soccer.”
