After emerging as one of the Olympic Conference’s breakout teams with a 13–6 record last season, the Chargers are now aiming for postseason success.
This season is all about finishing for the Timber Creek Regional High School girls soccer team.
The Chargers had an outstanding start to the season in 2016, going 7–1 in September en route to a 13-win season. However, Timber Creek cooled off with the weather in October and failed to win a game in the state tournament, losing at home to Seneca High School in the opening round of the South Jersey Group III Tournament.
This year’s returning players are determined to replicate last September’s solid play for an entire season in 2017.
“It’s about unfinished business,” senior Angela Tassi said of this season.
“We’re going to try to keep the same mentality throughout the whole season,” senior Emily Navarrete added.
Head coach T.J. Ambrose believes his team is capable of big things in 2017. Timber Creek returns the majority of its starting lineup from last season, including all four of its starting backs and goalkeeper Skye Hunt.
Ambrose’s message to the experienced Chargers has been about consistency and maintaining a high level of play deep into the season.
“Let’s maintain what we start off with,” he said. “Having a good start is great, but the prize is at the end of the year.”
One hole Timber Creek has to fill this year is on offense. The Chargers lost the program’s all-time leading scorer, Sarina Jones, to graduation. Jones was Timber Creek’s leading scorer last year with 31 goals. Her departure will mean a shift in the team’s offensive philosophy this season.
“We’re going to work the ball around a little more and have a lot of players shooting,” Navarrete said.
Ambrose believes having a number of talented players on offense will allow the Chargers to replicate the offensive production it had last year.
“We think we have the players in camp right now to replace 31 goals,” Ambrose said.
Timber Creek’s strength will be in the backfield, where returning All-Olympic Conference back Mikayla Conway and Hunt will help anchor the Chargers defense.
Ambrose said the team develops plays from its backfield and plays up from there.
“Our back is our foundation so we build up from there,” senior Zaria Dickson added.
Navarrete said the team also uses its speed to its advantage. Team speed helped the Chargers on the attack last year. Navarrete is the team’s top returning offensive player after tallying nine goals and 16 assists in 2016.
“We have a lot of speed, so we definitely try to build off of that,” she said.
Though there are a lot of returning players, the early days of practice were spent on fundamentals. These drills allow the upperclassmen to work with some of the team’s younger players who may have an impact as the season continues on. Hunt talked about the importance of building chemistry between the returning starters and the younger players.
“We’re trying to make a friendship with them first, so they feel comfortable enough trying to talk with all of us,” Hunt said.
Timber Creek made huge strides as a program in 2016, more than doubling its win total after winning just six games in 2015. This year, the team believes a conference, sectional and maybe even a state championship are possible.
“We’ve done so much last year,” Conway said. “Just to see how far we’ve gotten and how we can go so much further.”
UPDATE: Through five games, Timber Creek has a 2–3 record. The Chargers pulled out wins over Cherry Hill High School West and Winslow High School.
