Youth to lead Lady Pirates

Sometimes the best thing about youth is it simply doesn’t know any better.

At least, that’s what Eric Hill is hoping. The head coach of the Hannibal girls soccer team expects to field a youthful squad for 2010. While the team does have some upperclassmen who will be counted on to contribute, Hill said the Lady Pirates are going to need production from the younger players.

The youth of the Lady Pirates could be a plus for the team. Hannibal’s schedule for the upcoming season is packed with traditional soccer powers — teams that Hannibal has struggled with in the past. The young players don’t know about the struggles.

“We play some big teams that are traditionally very good — for example, Rockbridge, Helias, Troy — but I look for us to compete with them,” Hill said. “In the past, it’s kind of been the thing with Hannibal soccer — both boys and girls — is that we get a little nervous and we’re not quite as confident in ourselves when we play teams like that. To be real honest, we’re going to have a young team overall. We have seniors that are going to contribute, but we’re going to be pretty young. They may not know any different, so I think’s that’s going to be a positive. We’re just going to go out and play with whoever is on the field with us.”

After a 13-12 season in 2009, the Lady Pirates have a simple goal for 2010.

“I hope for us to be very completive in the conference,” Hill said. “I hope to come out and be competitive in every game we play.”

Hill’s desire for a competitive team is an understatement. Despite losing five senior starters from last year’s squad, Hill said he likes the makeup of the Lady Pirates this season. If everything clicks for Hannibal, the Lady Pirates could be bringing home some hardware.

“Winning conference is within reason,” Hill said. “Moberly is always strong, but they graduated a lot from last year. They’re a team that you would never, ever look past — they just kind of reload. I think they’re going at the top of the conference. If we’re able to beat Moberly, winning Districts is an achievable goal.”

If Hannibal is going to make a run at a conference title, the Lady Pirates must fill in the holes left by the 2009 seniors. Hill said some of the players stepping up include girls with JV experience and even some freshmen.

Last season the Pirates leaned heavily on then-senior Chelsea Reutenauer. She was the main offensive weapon for the black and red and potted more than 20 goals, included a school-record five in one game. The Lady Pirates aren’t going to try and replace Reutenauer with one player, instead Hannibal hopes to spread the offense around to keep defenses on their toes. Last season, team’s focused on shutting down Reutenauer. This year, Hill hopes to have a list of players for other teams to stop.

“One nice thing about this, is we’re going to have scoring coming from different places,” Hill said. “Not that we ever want to say it’s great that Chelsea’s gone — you don’t want to lose a player like that, she brought so much to the team, but other teams knew she was the going to score the majority of our goals so the could focus on shutting her down. Hopefully we’ll have two or three goals who can score a good number of goals for us this year, and so far that’s what it looks like to me is what we’re going to have.”

One thing the offense — and the defense — will have going for it is speed.

“This is going to be the most speed that we have had as a team,” Hill said. “I think our starting 10 field players are going to have some speed on them. We’re going to be able to run with anybody.”
While the Hannibal offense will have a new look this season, so will the goal. Whitney Voepel was a four-year starter for the Lady Pirates. With Voepel out of the picture, the race to fill the void between the pipes comes down to senior Kadie Hays and freshman Tayler Charlton.

“[Hays] is our leading candidate for us,” Hill said. “She’s got the experience and she’s been here for us. ... I’d say right now, it’s Kadie’s spot to lose.”

Hannibal kicks off the 2010 season at 5 p.m. on Monday, March 22, at EA Porter Stadium against Troy.