Any fires that still exist in the bellies of the girls on the Orchard Farm soccer team headed into this season are good things, coach Brandon Cox says.
It was, after all, a controversial play in the final seconds of the Eagles' 2-1 double-overtime loss to Trinity Catholic in the teams' Class 1 district championship game that ended the team's season.
"We lost with 30 seconds to play," Cox said. "This is a sore spot, I'm sure. A lot of the girls still bring it up only because of the way that it happened."
The great thing about Orchard Farm's reset for the 2011 season is, depending upon how you look at it, there are eight to nine starters back with varying degrees of time spent on the field to start games during last season's 14-10 campaign.
Another bright spot is Trinity is off to Class 2 and, in their place, is an all-St. Charles County Class 1 district with Barat Academy, O'Fallon Christian and Lutheran St. Charles.
"Christian always has a good team and they always do a good job," Cox said. "We're all pretty competitive, I think. We definitely feel we have a chance if we're playing well."
Leading the cavalcade of returners for the Eagles are junior midfielder and second team all-state player Alexis Robbers (27 goals, nine assists last season), senior midfielder Andrea Liston (7-14) and senior defenders Casey Kesselheim and Sareen Dargahi.
Kesselhiem and Dargahi were key components in an Eagles squad that gave up just 36 total goals - or 1.44 per game - last season.
One added bonus for this season is junior forward Brooke Burckhardt (9-2) is back ready and raring to go after missing all but 13 games last year.
Burckhardt will team with sophomore Meghan Boschert (3-1) to provide a one-two finishing punch.
"It will be nice to have Alexis and Andrea working together in the midfield again," Cox said. "It will be nice to have Brooke back this year for a full season as well. It will be a good offensive boost. Meghan had to grow a lot as a freshman and she understands a lot more of what we're doing. She will be more ready this season because last year she was thrown into things she just wasn't used to."
Others back to provide some valuable depth include sophomore Kyleigha Wacker at outside mid or back, sophomore Claire Liston at outside mid and a freshman in Casey Mann at center back.
Sophomore Abbey Gruendler and junior Corrin Scriber will ultimately share duties in the goal. The duo will have a big pair of shoes to fill in those of graduated all-state player Hannah Dwiggins.
"We won't have Corrin for the first week or so," Cox said. "She just had some surgery. She will be (ready) later in the year."
With so much back, it would be easy to see why Cox and the Eagles could aim high this season. Orchard Farm earned the No. 10 spot among small schools in the STLhighschoolsports.com preseason rankings.
The coach hopes his team can just continue to improve and be ready to contend by season's end.
"If we give it our best effort, I am OK," Cox said. "If we play really hard and play with pride and have some fun, then I am OK with whatever the result is."
