This year, girls soccer tryouts were different than usual. 

Rather than have all girls tryout on the same day, freshmen began a day before returning team-hopefuls, starting on Feb. 28, and the other girls joined tryouts the next two days. 

“The freshman class was so big this year that they had to separate things out,” sophomore soccer player Ulla Sharp said. “There was a lot of interest in the program, so that’s exciting.”

To combat the high freshman class, a freshman-only day was added to the tryout process. According to senior soccer player Anna Singh, during the first day, the girls are broken into small groups to practice and run drills while coaches observe. 

Each day, the girls are broken into larger groups to scrimmage, and on the second day, they also play games 1-on-1 so coaches can evaluate them more closely, Singh said. Cuts are made every day. 

“If you didn’t get cut that [third] day, you made it on the team,” Singh said. “You won’t know what team you are on exactly until two weeks or so of practicing together.” 

Girls who made it through the three tryout days will be placed into one of three teams: varsity, JV or the reserved team. 

According to senior Kearsten Naney, many girls are still meeting each other and learning names throughout the tryout days, which makes communication and establishing a team-dynamic more difficult during the first group drills.

Though the tryout process looked different than last year, it didn’t faze the returning players. 

“I was confident in my play,” Sharp said. “I tried out last year, so I knew what to expect, but it was nice to find out that there was some good competition coming to help better our team.”

Naney, too, said that the new tryout format wasn’t much of a change for returning players, and the cuts from the first day made the next two days of tryouts feel more manageable. 

“You go out there and just do what you know to do,” Sharp said. “Give it everything you have and whatever happens, happens.”

This worked for Sharp, who made it through all three days of tryouts, though she still awaits her official team announcement. 

But the girls will know by Sunday, according to Singh, and the girls have high hopes for the season ahead.