GIRLS SOCCER PREVIEW
Unexpected injuries a season ago forced the Lady Greyhounds to put younger players into action on the pitch earlier than planned. As the 2024 girls soccer season begins, head coach Mikayla Coley hopes that on-the-jobtraining pays off.
Other than five upperclassmen, Jones County’s roster is made up of entirely freshman and sophomores. Those five experienced returners are Reagan Sorrell, Emily Patat, Raven Warren, Wendy Ramirez and Kalyn Knight.
“I feel like we’re very young, but it’s exciting. It’s a whole putting together pieces of a puzzle. We have a lot of young kids back that started. We are not starting fresh-fresh,” Coley said. “A lot of them have a full season of varsity experience under their belt.
They’ll be ready to go. I think the experience helps. With them having gotten so much time last year, they know what to expect.” The gained experience goes deeper than that for the Lady Greyhounds.
The injuries from last year pulled players up from the JV roster. As a result, a handful of eighth graders saw experience at a higher level when they took the field in JV games.
“They’ll know the drill, too,” Coley said.
The Lady Greyhounds, along with their boys counterparts, open the season Friday at GMC Prep, host Central on Feb. 8 and begin region play Mar. 1 at home against Locust Grove. Overall, Jones County has eight games before region play.
For the Lady Greyhounds, that’ll be a time to get a better feel for who the best fit is up and down the field and which alignments work best.
“I can’t tell you who is in goal right now. It’s basically a blank slate,” Coley said last week. “We’ll definitely figure things out before region starts.
We don’t have a lot of upperclassmen, and that’s ok because we want to develop our program year after year and help them learn more about not just soccer but life as well.”
