As the girls soccer team approaches their next season they are ready for another fearsome beginning. 

   Senior Ellison Osborne has been playing soccer for as long as she can remember. She plays defense and up top. Osborne also plays softball and is committed to her school work. As her senior year starts to come to a close, she is very happy she has been a part of an amazing team.  

   One of Osborne’s difficulties was moving positions her freshman year. She moved from playing forward to playing back, and it was hard for her to learn a new position, but now she enjoys it. 

   “It makes me happy knowing I did play soccer because I didn’t plan on playing in high school,” Osborne said. “Then Palmer pulled me out and was like, ‘Hey, are you playing this year?’ and then I decided to. I’m glad I did because if I didn’t I would’ve missed out on a lot of stuff.” 

   Osborne hopes to work on being able to see the field more and to build many new relationships with her team. 

   Soccer has many different positions. One of them is ‘swing.’ This is when a person plays on a junior varsity and varsity team, and that is what sophomore Emily Sutherland does. 

  As a freshman, Emily was able to play on the varsity and junior varsity teams. She plays forward, middle, and wing. Emily has been playing soccer since she was three and has loved every second of it. She is hoping to get a scholarship so she is able to play in college. 

   “I like how it is such a team sport: You get to connect with your team, be together and you’re super happy for one another,” Sutherland said. 

   Sutherland hopes to score many more goals and to grow closer to her teammates.  

  Girls and boys soccer coach and American Government teacher Evan Palmer has been coaching Nixa’s soccer team since the start in 1998. Palmer loves coaching the girls and boys soccer teams.

   Along with Palmer, the assistant coaches Josh Postgate and Jordan Burns all attend coaching clinics to help improve their coaching. The men want to improve their coaching every season so they can help their athletes become better people and better players. Palmer and the assistant coaches coach the girls’ and boys’ teams similar with minimal differences.    

   As the freshman try out for soccer, Palmer gave a few key points for them. 

   “Come in to work hard and have an open mind about where you might play,” Palmer said. ”You might be used to a position, but there might be too many people there, and we’ll need you to play somewhere else. So be open minded and think of what you can do to help the team.” 

   The girls’ team hopes to focus on getting better every day and to be competitive.

   “The girls have won seven district championships and seven conference championships,” Palmer said. “We made the final four once in 2013 and finished 4th that year.”

   The top people the girls face will be Glendale, Kickapoo, and Ozark. The girls’ team hopes to stay on top, to learn from the games and come out better than before. 

   In 1998 the girls soccer team had been established. In 1995 some girls would take part on the boys team. While playing at the Nixa Junior High School at the time and practicing at the fields behind Price Cutter the girls team had many losses. In 2009 the girls team made a comeback and had their first winning season after hovering over the 500 mark.

   As construction starts on the football field, the girls will still be able to practice and to have games at the Eagle Stadium, but will be informed on being able to use the bathrooms, locker rooms and concession stand at a later date. It is advised that people enter in the Northeast gate and sit on the visitor side of the bleachers.