With a core of the girls’ state soccer tournament team from a year ago departing for Pella High head soccer coach, Mark Howard, he does have a challenge on his hands to fill in some holes for this season’s team. It’s a task that he’s up for in his first year as head coach, and Howard said that while it will be difficult to replace last year’s seniors, he has a great group of girls returning this year that are very capable of performing at a high level.
“Gabi Meirick was an honorable mention all-state, and Bri Schroder was second team all-state, and they’ll be back,” Howard said. “We also have four all-conference players coming back, Gabi, Allie DeMeulenaere, Bri Schroder, and Zoe Vermeer, our goalkeeper. We do have a good core of players coming back and I think we have a good group of girls who can fill in quite well for the players that are gone now and graduated.”
The Lady Dutch will spend this entire week practicing, and will see their first taste of action next Tuesday at home in a scrimmage with a time and opponent still to be determined.