Special season for Summit soccer squads
Something special is brewing on the pitch over at Summit High School.
The girls’ team is ranked #1 in state, while the boys’ team is ranked second.
It’s been a season of firsts for the Summit soccer program.
In the school’s 11 years of existence, this is the first time both the girls and guys teams have captured the IMC title in the same season, something both coaches take pride in.
“It speaks to Central Oregon soccer, and we have a lot of success there and that helps those girls come in and the boys come in,” said girls Head Coach Jamie Brock. “But it also says Summit is a force to be reckoned with, on both the boys and girls side.”
“For us, it’s been difficult to get an IMC championship,” said boys Head Coach Ron Kidder. “We’ve been close a few times, but we’ve come up short, and the girls have had more success than us. They obviously have more IMC championships, more state titles.”
“It feels like the boys program, we’ve been chasing. We want our trophy case full as well,” Kidder added.
The girls team has seen success in the past, as they won the state title two years ago. But this is the first time in school history they’ve gone undefeated on the season.
“We went into the season kind of shaky,” said Storm senior defender Sydney Parchman. “We were kind of unsure, just because we lost so many seniors last year. And to have an undefeated season is kind of surreal. It just gives us a lot of motivation to just do even more.”
“For us, it’s kind of that reassurance of, ‘Yeah, we’re building that tradition,'” Brock said. “And I think the girls this year have got it moreso than we’ve had in the past. This is our time. We’re building that piece of tradition for Summit’s soccer program.”
While the girls are unbeaten, the guys team has been nearly as good, as their only loss came to the #1 ranked team in Class 5A: Woodburn.
“The biggest difference between this team and other teams here at Summit is, this team has confidence that a lot of other teams haven’t had, where we’ve gone into the playoffs really believing that we can win,” Kidder said.
Storm senior goalie Hayes Joyners said, “I think our player change and the underclassmen coming up and playing on varsity, I think that’s a big impact on our team. They’ve helped us out a lot.”
And with both teams playing well this year, it’s been a friendly rivalry between the girls and guys.
“Of course there’s a few jokes, but no one takes it personally. It’s all fun,” Joyner said.
Parchman siad, “When the boys are practicing, it’s not like we want to show off or anything, but it definitely gives us more of a motivation to work harder and stuff. And when we look over and they’re not doing fitness and we are, we’re like, ‘Yeah, we’re doing better.”
