The only blemish on the Lady Texan’s young season came at an inopportune time. In the inaugural Lady Texan Cup, the first soccer tournament hosted by the Wimberley girls’ soccer team, Wimberley placed third after falling to Pieper 3-1 on the second day of the event. However, that loss was a learning experience. After all, it was the first time in eight games the girls had even trailed in a game.
“That was our hardest game of the year, but it was also the game that we learned the most in,” Soccer Coach Brinton Nute said. “We learned how to deal with adversity. This was the first time we were behind in a game, and the girls reacted well. We were down 3-0, and they came back. They reacted positively rather than have your heads down, which can happen when you’re 7-0 on the season and thinking you are the best team around.”
It has been a strong start to the season for a team that has high expectations following a season in which Wimberley made a deep run into the playoffs to the Regional Finals. The team graduated a strong senior class last season, including multiple players that went on to play college ball, but it was only four players. The Lady Texans return 15 players with varsity experience including five seniors and two players named to the Texas Association of Soccer Coaches First-Team All-State squad in Emily Thames and Izzy Franchione.
That experience shows as Wimberley’s season is dotted with wins that look more like the records of college football powerhouses than they do soccer scores. 12-0 over Corpus Christi Carroll. 12-0 over Corpus
Christi Moody. Before the tournament this weekend, the best any team had been able to keep up with the Lady Texans was a 7-1 win in the season opener over Pleasanton.
But good teams schedule good opponents. To do so, Wimberley largely had to schedule larger 5A schools in their own tournament, and the team held up strong.
With two games in one day, the Lady Texans beat Pflugerville Connally 2-0 to start the tournament on Thursday of last week and then played a second game that same evening beating Brackenridge San Antonio 9-0.
The 3-1 loss to Peiper on Friday led to a unique game against Kerrville Tivy on Saturday. The match for third place in the tournament was held when wind gusts were reaching as high as 50 mph.
“It was probably the windiest conditions I’ve ever been in,” Nute said. “We had sandbags on the goal, and the wind still pushed the goal away. We had to go get 45 pound weights from the weight room to hold them still.”
It made for an interesting match where the direction the team was going had a strong impact on the style of play. In the first half, Wimberley had the wind at their backs, so they at-tacked. In the second half, with the wind head on, it was a defensive struggle to keep the ball out of the net.
“We had the wind the first half, and we were taking shots from distance to try and get one in,” Nute said. “Then for the second half, it was fighting in the trenches and trying to get it out of danger and giving our goalkeeper a chance to keep a clean sheet. We defended well, but (the ball) was in our half a lot when we were playing against the wind.”
The Lady Texans held on for a 1-0 victory to move to 8-1 on the season. Wimberley will play next on Friday in Burnet at 6 p.m.
