JV player Sophia Perkins compares her soccer experiences

Q: How has your experience in the high school soccer program been so far?

A: It’s really fun to be able to play with my friends from school, mixing things up from comp soccer and feeling more like a part of Whitney.

Q:  What do you like about the high school soccer program that you can’t experience in club?

A: Getting to play with new people and experiencing new scenarios that wouldn’t happen usually during the comp season, like having people from school come out and support us.

Q:  What preparation did you go through to ensure that you were ready to perform at tryouts?

A: Our coach had set up conditioning sessions as a chance for us to get in shape for tryouts and to begin to recognize faces of other girls.

Q: How often were your conditioning sessions and what did you guys do specifically?

A: We trained from 3-4:30 p.m. every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for three weeks up until tryouts. We usually ran one or two miles and then we would do other stuff like stair reps and ab workouts.

Q: How were you feeling going into tryouts this year? Were you concerned since you were returning from a back injury? Did you expect a lot of competition?

A: My back has pretty much healed, so I just felt excited to return to playing after being out for a while. I knew the competition was going to be tough because people were coming from all different levels of teams and skills.

Q: What strengths does your high school team hold to help them this season?

A: I think this is going to be a good season because we have a very strong and competitive lineup. Most of us know each other already from our comp teams, so we have that as an advantage to help us work well together from the start.

Q:  What are you looking forward to most this high school season?

A: I’m looking forward to our team dinners where I get to make new bonds with people I probably wouldn’t have met otherwise and getting to play soccer in a different atmosphere than on comp.

Q: What are your goals for this season? What do you want to accomplish before you return to club soccer?

A: My goals are to progress in my skills as a player, as well as being a team leader, and be conditioned and ready to go back to comp in the spring.