This school year has brought the addition of a new team to the girls’ soccer program, along with a new head coach. Instead of fielding one large junior varsity team, there will be smaller JV-A and JV-B teams. Although head girls’ soccer coach Jason Rich didn’t originally intend to have three teams, upon seeing the increased interest in soccer this year, he realized that the addition was necessary. 

“When I started to look at the numbers and just get a rough idea of who would end up where it seemed like [we had] a bunch of extra players,” Rich said. “If we have 24 players on the JV team when you play 11 players on the field, it’s going to be really hard to get some of these players playing time. So we crunched some numbers and said, ‘we think we can do this.’”

Another reason that Rich decided to add a third team was to make more spots for new players.

“This is also a way where we don’t have to cut any players,” Rich said, “so we can give anyone who wants to play a sport or an extracurricular activity a home.”

Besides giving new players a chance to play, the decision to not make cuts removes stress for experienced players. Despite having played club soccer for a long time, freshman Wynne Pirkey was nervous that she could get cut.

“I was really worried I was going to get cut from the team and wouldn’t be able to play soccer,” Pirkey said. “So I’m definitely thankful.”

Although coaches may have wanted to establish a third team in the past, the majority of teams in the district only had a JV and varsity team, so it would have been tough to find games for a JV-B team to play. However, the district changes have caused McCallum to lose four of the schools without a JV-B team—Northeast, Travis, Eastside and LBJ—and gain three schools with a JV-B team—Anderson, Cedar Creek and Bastrop—so it is possible to have a third team for the first time.

“We found out that six other teams in our district also had a JV-B team, so that would be 12 games for them,” Rich said. “We had interest from other coaches in scheduling some other JV-B games, so we have them a significant amount of games, around 15 or 16 games on the season.”

Fielding three teams will also help McCallum compete better in the district in the long term because it will give players more gametime experience due to JV-A and JV-B’s smaller sizes. While practice may teach players the basics such as passing, shooting and dribbling, game time experience teaches players the higher level, situational skills necessary to succeed at a high level of play, according to Rich.

“Most of the players in the program will get significant playing time this year, which will increase their chances to develop as players more,” Rich said. “We do our best to develop players from practice but it’s the game experience that really teaches players higher level things. It’s really hard to recreate the speed of a game in practice, to have referees, and to play 11 v. 11.”

Besides helping develop players’ skills, freshman Shiloh Hendrickse feels that the extra time on the field will help bring her teammates closer together.

“Games really do bond you as a team, because you’re all relying on each other,” Hendrickse said. “You want to play your best for your team because your team is depending on you, so it creates these close personal relationships.”

Hendrickse also feels that the smaller-sized teams will help boost her teammates’ confidence because people who may have been benched on JV will instead be playing on the field on JV-B. 

“Being on the bench can impact your confidence as a player and then when you come off the bench sometimes that can impact how you play,” Hendrickse said. “No one deserves to have their confidence taken away from them. For every soccer player’s esteem, self-confidence, just overall enjoyment of the game, it’s really important to actually get to play with your team, because it’s ultimately always a team bonding experience every time you play.”