By Cambria Roth
In the spring of 2003, Fred George formed a team of 8-year-old girls called ‘The Emeralds’ for the Silver Falls Soccer Club.
After training that spring, they decided to enter a tournament in Corvallis and went up against a premier gold team, called ‘The Glitter Girls.’
“I thought we had a pretty good chance because the girls were good in practice and worked hard but we went to the wrong tournament, a premier tournament and we weren’t a premier team,” George said.
The Emeralds ended up losing that game, 19-0 as well as all of the games in the tournament.
After one more week of practice, the girls came out the next weekend at the Salem Waterfront Tournament and were defeated, 6-1, by the Glitter Girls.
George had never been so happy to lose so badly.
The Emeralds did not win any of the tournament games but came away with the moral that they were better because they had worked so hard to improve.
Skip ahead to September 2009 and many of the girls who began playing soccer together when they were 8 and 9 years old are now playing on the Silverton High School varsity girls Lady Foxes soccer team where George is the head coach. Several of his former Emerald players also are playing for the junior varsity team.
“There is a definite advantage for the high school program to have players that have stuck together and played with one another,” George said.
“They don’t need to learn what one player is going to do when they get the ball, they just have trust in them and know that player will do what they need to do.”
George said the varsity team will be complete by integrating the talented and successful upperclassman with the girls who have grown up playing together.
The varsity members of the Lady Foxes team are Trisha Anderson, Emma Bochsler, Josie Brown, Sierra Brusven, Sarah Burk, Ashley Collins, Whitney Davis, Anna Funrue, Talia Helman, Amy Jamsa, Jordan Keating, Jane Kitts, Elizabeth Leslie, Sydney Madge, Miranda Roth, Marissa Stewart, Amber St. Paul, Madison Stadeli and Maddy Trudelle.
“These girls have grown up to become young ladies and it’s interesting to think back to when they were just 8 year old girls,” George said. “Now that I’m coaching them today, I feel like a parent to them. They have grown up around me so I feel a responsibility to them, how they are, and the {people} they have become.”
The girls soccer team is a close knit group.
“We are like a family, so we play with heart because we grew up together,” junior midfielder Sierra Brusven said. “We enjoy making each other look better and play better.”
The team lost its first game on Sept. 8 to Willamette High School and won its second game on Sept. 10 against Oregon City High School.
“These girls are working very hard every day in training and it’s paying off on the pinch,” George said. “We’re doing everything that we need to do to be a successful ball club. I’m hopeful that all of this hard work will help us get back to state playoffs in November.”
