By Brennan Stebbins (For OzarksSportsZone.com)
The Monett girls soccer team may not have played a season last spring but head coach Neal Bluel isn’t worried about the development of his players.
“We’ve always had a strong community around soccer in Monett,” he said. “Just drive around here and you’ll see kids playing in the park all the time. We have a really nice youth development team that plays competitively. A lot of girls ended up playing some futsal over the winter and pickup games throughout the offseason. I’m not too worried about that.”
Bluel, who pushes his players to play other sports during the school year, said the Cubs enter this season in some of the best shape they’ve been in. And there is plenty of interest as Monett looks to bounce back from a 5-18-2 season in 2019.
The roster includes a dozen seniors and a dozen freshmen. More than 40 players have expressed interest in playing. One downside to that is the program has decided to eliminate its “C” team this season due to COVID protocols, opting instead to focus on varsity and junior varsity.
“For the first time in our program’s history we’re having to really look at the players and the true interest of the players, fitness level of the players and just make determinations of who’s going to be our top 30, 32 players we’ll move forward with,” Bluel said. “It’s kind of a bittersweet thing really. We’ll get the ‘C’ team going back up next year once we get through all the COVID stuff.”
The varsity Cubs return nine players who’ve started at least one game in their career, highlighted by senior Deisy Mejia, an all-district forward and second team Big 8 pick as a sophomore after notching four goals and four assists that season.
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“She’s a great player,” Bluel said. “The control she has on the ball – and she’s just gotten better over this year so she’s going to be a big asset for the team.”
Senior Natalie Turner (three goals) started pretty much every game and will play as a midfielder or defender. Defenders Kate Huntress (two goals) and Jaida Worm (one goal) played virtually every minute. Huntress is a senior who earned honorable mention Big 8 honors. Worm is a junior. Senior Abigail Jastal will also provide important leadership; she was a state wrestling qualifier in the winter. Other key contributors include senior Emily Shaw, who suffered a knee injury two years ago but has had an extra year to recover, and sophomore Deleny Rueda.
“I think we’re going to be more attacking than we have been in the past,” Bluel said. “I like to have my defenders attack from the back. With the experience we have back there I don’t see that being a problem, having them move up a little bit and work the ball from the back. Our midfielders should be strong and with Deisy up front, I’m looking for her to get quite a few goals for us.”
Bluel said the expectation is always to win a district championship. He felt like Monett had the team to do it last year and with the experience coming back the goal remains unchanged.
The Cubs won’t play in a jamboree, instead opening the season March 19-20 in the Cassville tournament. They’ll face Cassville and Aurora early on, two teams that could wind up in their district.
