The spring sports have yet to begin, but AHS soccer has already began preparing for its season.

Soccer coach, Lindsey Ottavio, already knows what she is looking for in girls that try out.

“There’s no guarantee for any player. Every year we look at everyone trying out and we take the top 20 girls and they make the varsity roster,” coach Ottavio said. “We look at a couple of things: their physical ability, which includes things such as fitness testing, their technical ability, which includes ball skills, and lastly their tactical ability, which is more in terms of a game scenario.”

Before tryouts, Ottavio holds yellow and green days, where the girls complete activities that will prepare them for the official tryouts.

The first tryouts for the girls soccer team will be on Tuesday, February 19th at Ossian park. All girls are welcomed.

“Within tryouts, we give specific explanations or examples so that they know what’s required of them,” Ottavio said. “I also send out workouts and other things for them to do to prepare for the actual tryouts.”

Ottavio compares preparation for the season to a “wirlwind.”

“We pick the team and create chemistry. We have to figure out what the personality of the team is this year. After that we go straight into scrimmages which gives us a better look at the individual player,” Ottavio said.

Players also shared how the soccer coach prepares the girls before the season starts.

“Our coach, Ms. Ottavio, starts preparing us by conditioning us to green and yellow,” Joya said. “She does this so that we get used to the schedule and work we will have when the actual season starts.”

Joya played on the varsity soccer team last year and has been playing soccer for 12 years.

“It’s my passion and my love” she said “My dad plays soccer, and I want to go somewhere with it too.”

Joya was injured earlier this month by playing futsal, which is a type of soccer. However, the injury has not stopped her from working hard to recover in time to play for this season.

“I want to first and foremost recover from my injury,” Joya said. “I then plan on working out by running some miles and doing some agility ball work on my own, as well as my travel practices.”

Joya also shared her goals for this season.

“My goals for this season is to be better than last year,” Joya said. “It all depends on how I heal during my therapy, but I think I’ll be back before the season starts.”

Lalia Lopez also shared her goals for this season. Lalia played varsity last year.

“My goals for the season is to win more games than last year, to have better chemistry throughout the whole team,” Lopez said.