Broad Run Soccer Avenges Last Year’s Loss

By Matt Brooks (Contact)

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

With the Broad Run girls’ soccer team still sporting the bumps and bruises from Saturday’s hotly contested state championship game against Courtland, Spartans Coach Claire Collins is already looking ahead to next season.

Only five days after her team completed a 24-0 season with a 1-0 victory in the Virginia AA title game, Collins is back to work trying to conjure up next year’s goal.

How does one motivate a team that outscored its opponents 113-16?

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Broad Run Wins Soccer Championship

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With 34:55 on the clock in the first half, Broad Run's Holly King steps in to take the ball from Courtland's Kara Blosser. Broad Run went on to win the Group AA Girls Soccer Championship at Radford University. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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During the first half Courtland's Lauren McCoy runs down the field with the ball while Broad Run's Valerie Powell comes from behind to steal the ball. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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Broad Run and Courtland play for the Virginia AA girls' soccer championship. Broad Run's Ellie Zoepfl scores her team's first goal and Holly King runs up to congratulate her. Broad Run won the game. (Tracy A. Woodward)

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“I was looking through the media guide this weekend and saw that there hasn’t ever been a back-to-back state champion in AA girls’ soccer,” Collins said. “So maybe that’s the next big challenge.”

Collins has tried several motivational techniques the past two years.

Last year, it was the abbreviation RDRS, which stood for regular season, district, regional and state. Broad Run fell just short of the final hurdle, losing to Courtland in the state quarterfinals on penalty kicks. This season, the goal was to play 25 games — the maximum number required to win the title. (A first-round bye in the Region II tournament allowed the Spartans to play just 24.)

After each game, the girls would huddle and scream the number of games remaining to reach the plateau so that after avenging last season’s loss they could finally scream “25.”

“We couldn’t get the last S last year, but this time we got it done,” junior midfielder Holly King said after the title game. “It’s an awesome feeling.”

King, who is in the United States under-17 national team’s player pool, is one of several key starters returning to next year’s team. While the Spartans lose two contributors to their vaunted attack in seniors Kelly Smith and Carina Chavez, everyone else is returning.

The Spartans should also get some reinforcements from the junior varsity squad and incoming freshmen, whom Collins refuses to overlook. After all, it was freshman midfielder Ellie Zoepfl who scored the winner against Courtland.

The numbers show how dominant Broad Run was this past season in two sports.

“We know she has a good foot, so it wasn’t really unexpected, but for her to come through in a state final game, that was absolutely amazing,” King said.

The variety of scoring options was an asset for the Spartans all season as different players stepped up in key situations. In the state tournament alone, five players tallied goals.

Defending the state title is sure to be a difficult task, as each opponent will be driven to take down the undefeated champion. But it’s one Collins and her team are eager to take on.

“Everybody is going to be gunning for us next year,” Collins said. “But I think that’s great, and I know the girls like that challenge.”

Tagged: Broad Run High School, soccer

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