Photo courtesy of Photoworks The 2018 Marshall girls soccer team includes front row (L to R): Claudia Solis Sakurada, Emily Hernandez, Raini Grams, Lenei Estrada and Genesis Hernandez. Middle Row (L to R): Marissa Talamantes, Alex Devos, Anna Kuecker, Danya Estrada, Ali Quist and Darian Ross. Back Row (L to R): Coach Jesus Hernandez, Emma Mernaugh, Hannah Gordon, Grace Gordon, Clarissa Flores, Natasha Ross and assistant coach Shayna Smith. Missing: Maddy VanKeulen and Hser Ktray Say.

MARSHALL – With a season of fresh beginnings under their belts, the Marshall boys and girls soccer teams will look to take another step forward this fall.

Girls

Senior leadership and game experience are luxuries for any coach trying to build a successful team regardless of sport. For the 2017 Marshall girls soccer team, coach Jesus Hernandez didn’t have that luxury and was faced with the tough task of rostering a youthful roster of underclassmen. Facing the same issues in the 2018 season, coach Hernandez will look to balance the young team’s lack of size by using their immense team speed to their advantage.

“I believe (our strength) is our speed on attack,” said Hernandez. “We have three atackers who are faster than most defenders out there. Being smaller in size, our focus has been ball control and quick passing to avoid physical play as much as possible.”

Boys

Coming off of their best finish in program history, the boys soccer team is looking to make an even deeper run in the postseason, and this time around coach Versaevel has some added fire power to help make that it happen. Four games into the 2018 regular season, Versaevel has seen an uptick in scoring output that has helped fuel the Tigers’ 3-0-1 start and should continue to make an impact later on in the season.

“I’d say this year we have a lot more power on offense,” said Versaevel. “We’ve scored a lot more goals than we have last year. I think last year we averaged about two goals per game, and I think this year we’re right around three or four, which is really good. Hopefully we can keep that up.”