The team is laden with incoming freshman and, as with any expansion-type team, serious growing pains are expected as they adjust to the speed and intensity of varsit play.

"We sat with our principal, Robert Ralston, and our athletic director, Tony Garrette, as well as assistant principal Keith Williams, and had some pretty serious discussions about whether we would play a season or two of junior varsity before tackling the varsity level of play," Neill said. "We felt like that we were competitive last year as a middle school program finishing third in our conference and most of that group will be joining us as freshmen.

First-year Viqueen coach Mark Neill demonstrates ball handling skills during a recent soccer practice at Community High. (T-G Photo by Jimmy Jones) [Click to enlarge] [Order this photo]

"We also had to factor in the fact that most schools in this area do not have junior varsity teams. As we researched it out we found that we would have to travel extensively to get a season in and that became cost prohibitive pretty quick all things considered."

Neill is a self-described soccer novice, with most of his exposure to the game coming from playing intramural sports in college and his very successful debut as Community's junior high coach last season.

"I've spent a good deal of time in the off-season reading books and watching instructional videos and I took every opportunity that I had during the season to watch other teams play," Neill said. "Even though we are a first year team we have some very experienced young ladies that have played several years of soccer in the recreational league and on travel teams. Many of the girls are accustomed to being on a winning team and maybe we can take the opportunity to learn from one another.

"We fully expect that we will take some lumps in our inaugural season, but we feel that we will be a better program down the road for any lessons that we may learn from our opponents."

Neill said that he has pretty much one philosophy as they approach opening day Sept. 23.

"I am pretty much a low-stress coach," Neill said. "I am not one that lives or dies by wins or losses so I am not afraid to lose. I don't like to lose, but if my team is showing improvement every week then I feel pretty good about the direction that we are going.

"I fully expect that we will be competitive in some games and that we will also run into some teams that we will not be able to match physically or on a talent level, at least not yet.

"But we will get there."