Despite pouring rain and below-average temperatures, the nearly three-month-long season made the middle school soccer team’s dynamic ‘great,’ co-captains Catherine Childers ’24 and Rose Chuck ’23 said.

“The rain has made it very difficult to practice. It’s also made many of our games canceled so that we can’t play other teams,” Childers said during the season.

Three out of ten of Archer’s middle school soccer team’s games were canceled because of rain, but the team remained undefeated up until the Pacific Basin League semi-finals. On Feb. 8, the team played the championship finals against Saint Matthews and lost 2-1.

When the rain was overwhelming, the team’s practices had to be canceled, which typically meant the girls had to go home. Citron mentioned a day when their practice was canceled and they attempted to move it to the HD room, which she said was “really interesting.”

“The [soccer] balls were flying everywhere, everyone was calling to each other and it was hard for them to see our partners with the whole team being in one room,” Citron said.

As co-captains of the team, Chuck and Childers led the team through drills and warmups.

“It’s a close-knit team — we’re all pretty close because we all get along really well. The team is spread out pretty evenly, grade-wise.” Chuck said, “All of the games have been great, we’ve won all of the ones that we’ve played and just the bus rides to the games are really fun, just talking with each other.”

The girls have also built friendships across all three grades.
“Most of my good friends are on the team and I’ve become friends with the sixth and the eighth graders,” Citron said.

The team’s coach, Jessica White, shared that the team had players with different levels of experience and that those with more experience in the sport helped those who hadn’t played competitively before.

“The culture [of the team] was built from all team players who were the best encouragers [and] supporters,” White said. “It truly was amazing to see them come together.”