This year the Canyon Ridge High School women’s varsity soccer team had only six returning players. Therefore, a total of twelve open spots were filled and a brand new team was made.  Although the new group offered numerous opportunities, it also came with a couple of obstacles. The main struggle was learning how to play with one another. Grace Tigue (11) has been on varsity the past three years and has not experienced such a large change in the team dynamic. Grace described the new team as “A little scary.” Not only did the team struggle with learning how to play with one another, but the new players were challenged with learning how to play up to the varsity speed.  Zoey Beebe (11) recognized the problem and expressed the issue by saying “Varsity is much different than playing in middle school or even coming up from JV. Everyone at first has to come up to pace.” Despite the hurdles, the team persisted nonetheless. Throughout the season there were countless team bonding and long bus rides that helped bring the girls together. The team grew closer and started to understand how everyone worked on the field. The returning players were able to help the newcomers grow and gave them guidance to bring them up to the varsity standard.  On the other hand, the team will not have to overcome the same obstacles next year. An advantage of having such a young team is the fact that they will be playing with one another for a couple more years and won’t have to figure out how to understand each other all over again. Grace communicated her excitement for years to come by exclaiming, “I can’t wait for next year and to see what our team will accomplish.”