Leadership shines for Bluejays this season as team looks to continue to build program

The Three Lakes-Phelps girls’ soccer team continues to grow in numbers, as 21 members look to hit the field this season for the Bluejays. Leadership is a key factor this season for Three Lakes-Phelps, which has six seniors and five juniors on the roster.

Head Coach Cole Griesbach enters the new season with another strong leadership group as the team continues to grow.

“The leadership on this team is amazing. Since I’ve started coaching, I’ve seen our senior class and captains each year show more and more leadership. The past seniors and current seniors have passed on great work ethics, knowledge and leadership abilities to the next classes, and it’s really starting to show,” he stated. “Each year, the senior class takes the next step in leadership, and this year is proving to be the same. As coaches, we rely on them during practice and games to help with drills, communication and develop skills with the underclassmen. With our team size being larger each year, having these seniors to rely on is huge.”

The returning letterwinners this season include Ayla Connor, Libby Eppler, Hope Eisel, Melanie Stauffer, Tessa Christophersen, Hallie Peterson, Abby Raddatz, Rylee Glembin, Cora Johnson, Avery Gutbroad, Keira Bollmann and Erica Stauffer.

The coaching staff is excited to start the season with this group and the team’s depth. Coach Griesbach said the biggest thing he wants to improve on this season is ball control.

“Ball control is a big point of focus for us this year. Ball control to me covers a wide variety of skills, such as trapping, passing, dribbling and awareness,” he explained. “Being able to control the ball allows you to see more of the field, make good, clean passes, and not turn the ball over after trapping or dribbling. Ball control also gives our players the confidence on the field to make these moves.”

He also said the midfield could be the team’s strong suit this season, which is one of the most important areas of the field. The depth the Bluejays have this year will also help with them wanting to possess the ball.

“It’s hard to pick one area of the field as our strongest asset, because we have solid players in every position; but if I had to pick one area, it would be our midfield. We have a great core of starters that can be rotated in multiple positions in the midfield, and plenty of players that can be substituted in to give them a break,” he stated. “Midfielders are expected to run the most during the game, so having these backup players to put in that we can rely on is huge for giving them rest. Having fresh legs in the midfield will be big for trying to control the ball more.”

After a few seasons of upperclassmen in goal, Griesbach said the team is transitioning to two sophomores as goalies this year. Raddatz and Kami Boehm both got playing time as freshmen due to other injuries, so Coach Griesbach is excited to see how the changes impact the team this year.

“They both got decent playing time last year due to injuries, which will help going into this year. We expect great things out of them this year as goalies and our defense. We evaluate the strengths in our players and adjust the formation as needed, and on defense this year, we changed it up a little bit to use these strengths,” he explained. “There’s obviously going to be growing pains with younger goalies and formation changes, but we expect to only get better each week as the season goes on.”

Three Lakes-Phelps will once again be an independent team this season, without a conference.

The coaching staff said the schedule is full of challenging opponents year after year. They hope their record will be above .500.

“Not having a conference makes our schedule very challenging each year. Given how challenging our opponents are, I always hope to be over .500 after the year. I also always shoot to try to be better than the previous year,” said Griesbach. “That being said, though, I’d say our biggest goal is to keep the program growing and developing each year so that we can keep pushing ourselves and get further into the playoffs.”

The Bluejays were scheduled to start the season last Thursday in Rhinelander, but that game was canceled due to schools being closed because of inclement weather. Three Lakes-Phelps were scheduled to travel to Ashland this past Tuesday. The home opener is scheduled for this Thursday, April 9, against Kingsford in Three Lakes at 5 p.m.