By Drew Terhall

DailyAdvocate.com

GREENVILLE — The Greenville High School soccer program has started their offseason training sessions for the upcoming 2023 season on May 30.

The team finished last season 3-14-1 and lost eight seniors to graduation. Head coach Dave Ernst said it will be tough to fill the holes left by those seniors, but he does think they have the talent to be better than last season’s team.

“I’ve had numerous people ask, ‘Hey coach, how good could you be?’ With the right young girls in the right spots, I think we could be better. It’s going to be more aggressive, fast paced with the 11 I put on the field. I think we can be better,” Ernst said. “There’s a lot of talent, there’s a lot of girls that don’t know any better. Why not be good. I’ve been looking forward to this since December.”

Ernst said between now and July 31, the official start of the fall sports season, he has 18 coaching days where the team can practice together.

He will take advantage of those days to focus on ball control, which includes trapping, passing and movement with the ball, along with defense. Ernst said he wants to be an aggressive and physical program and has no problem letting people know that.

The MVL features a good number of tough programs that have no problem being physical. The Lady Wave will work during the summer towards matching that physicality.

For the past four seasons, Greenville has won nine games. If the team can start playing aggressive and match their conference foe’s intensity, the Lady Wave can start to see some more wins this season.

“There is some physical programs in the MVL. If you don’t match them, you cower down and they win. No more. We’re going to change the story to Greenville. For too long, it’s been the punching dummy. Not any more,” Ernst said.

In addition to another season of high school Lady Wave soccer, the school will have a middle school program for girls grades 5 – 8 this fall. Ernst said he has been trying to start a program like this for a few years. After seeing good numbers with the indoor soccer league during the winter, he was able to get this program off the ground.

Ernst said the goal of the program is to get six to eight freshmen from the program each year to form a pipeline of talent to the high school program. He will have help from his assistants and other coaches to teach the young girls the fundamentals of soccer.

He said assistant coach and former Lady Wave soccer player Caitlin Beasecker will help with the varsity program and take those lessons to the middle school program and work with the coaches there.

“She’s going to be with me with this program and help with this program. But carry over everything we teach here to the middle school program with those coaches. That way, they’re being taught the right thing so they’re ready to go when they get to high school,” Ernst said.

For now, the high school program is looking for more players. Ernst said he would love to have more players join and be a part of the program.

It’s not too late for any Greenville high school girl to join the program. If interested, contact Coach Ernst at [email protected] or at 459-7967.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected]