Dribble, pass, press. Run, receive, shoot. Score.
The Lady Spartans soccer team’s 2025 season started rather unusually, with eight of 15 total members being brand new to the team. Six members of last year’s team were seniors, so when they graduated, there were “barely enough people for a team,” senior captain Zoe Taylor (12) said.
The other addition to the team is the new coach Ruthie Ivy, a former Lady Spartan in the graduating class of 2017.
“I’m not really familiar with her and her coaching style,” center attacking midfielder Ella Choi (10) said. “So obviously it’s gonna take time to adjust to her coaching styles and how she does plays and her formations and stuff.”
Practices run Monday through Thursday from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m., with the team playing about 17 games per season. During practices, the girls spend time running, scrimmaging, and practicing essential skills like footwork and shooting. Their conditioning began in June, and the season will end in October.
“We don’t have as high ball skills as other teams, like the private school teams,” Taylor said. “We definitely need to have our fitness and our endurance in order to compete against them. But honestly it’s just a lot of fun hanging around with all the girls and being able to laugh and joke and have people that make all this fitness and conditioning worth it.”
Multiple Lady Spartans, like Choi, center forward Abby Byrd (9) and striker Myra Boswell (9), are on club teams, which are more “intense” according to Choi. However, Tennessee law mandates through TSSAA that students are not allowed to play on a high school team and club team concurrently, but can still practice with both.
“With the club team you have at least 18, 20 players, and [the Lady Spartans] only have 14,” Byrd said. “It’s different to do because you have to train a lot more when you play almost the entire game with the high school than if you were to play on the club team, which you wouldn’t play, usually, the entire game.”
As soccer is a team sport, bonds between players may be essential to victory. Teammates spend hours together each week at practices and they must communicate split-second decisions during games.
“We’re pretty close,” Choi said. “Not like best friends but, still, we’re teammates, so obviously we’re gonna have to have good relationships with each other and keep up with these relationships.”
Some players have personal goals for the year, like Boswell, who hopes to be in the starting lineup for her club team. Others have goals for the entire team, like winning games and being prepared for next year’s season.
“I hope we win district this year, because we won it all the time in middle school, so it’d be good to win in high school, too,” Byrd said.