By Jeremy McDonald

jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com

MONMOUTH, Ore.–  The nine-ball drill towards the end of their camp at Western Oregon University provided some great experience for Silverton for inside the 18-foot box.

Defensively, how to read and stop those close-range shots with traffic around them.  Offensively, how to capitalize on those shots when they present themselves in the box.

“That drill in particular is really helpful for us because a lot of times we get it up to the 18 and kind of panic,” said Jess Sossie. “So I think it’s good that we were passing it around the 18 and see that we have more time than we thought.”

The drill was met by some approval entering their final water break of the camp as a drill that may come back over the Marion Bridge and back home as their first game is 19 days ahead of them against Mountain View.

Like a football camp, you got time to drill and practice.  But there was a scrimmaging component to the scrimmage as well as the Foxes played against a few teams from the Portland Thorns organization and themselves with a few of the Western Oregon University-girls sprinkled in to help elevate their games.

“We came into this like, ‘these are incredibly talented teams’.  They’re constantly playing, so we couldn’t be too down on ourselves about losing the games or anything,” said Mia Geroge.  “It helps us see how we want to play as a team, we want to play our brand of soccer and not ‘oh hey we’re losing, we’re just going to give up’.  We want to keep pursuing.”

With girls like Savannah Reilly and Kaitlyn Sinn graduating and Truitt Reilly taking some time to heal up from a nagging injury from last season, the Foxes continue on into 2019 looking to play their style of soccer.

The camp acted like a bridge from Summer League, where they won their fifth-straight title, and a good way to come out of the Moratorium Week entering Fall Practice on August 19.

“I think it was a wake-up call to play a bunch of teams that were younger than us and see how skilled they were.  It was good that we played them, we got beat up and stuff because I think that’s going to help us in the long run,” said Sossie.  “We’re going to be better coming out of this.”

Sossie, George, Ellie Schmitz, Jasmine Cook and Emily Hyde are some of the girls returning from Silverton’s Quarterfinal team in 2018; and with the experience of this summer mixed in from the leaders before them, it’s  time for new faces to step up as leaders on the team.

Geroge, who’s entering her third year as starting goalie for the Foxes with eight shutouts in the last two years to her resume, spoke to how Savannah Reilly and Sinn helped her to mold her into a leader entering her Senior season.

“They were great captains, it was a big honor to be chosen as a captain and we knew that we wanted to create a team that is bonded and create a team that’s close,” said Geroge.  “We didn’t want to be exclusive, we want to have everybody in as one big family.”

Silverton kicks off the season August 29 at home versus the Cougars before traveling to Thurston September 3 for their first away game of the 2019 campaign.