The Girls Varsity Soccer team is heading toward the end of its season while it works to make adjustments and score some wins before the season ends on March 13.

Although the team is disappointed with their lackluster 1-13 win record, the team kept working hard every day to make improvements. And the team celebrated their win over Del Valle on Feb. 20, which happened to be the team’s “senior night” game to celebrate their veteran players.

The team only has a few returning varsity members, making it a building year for the team, Head Coach Le’Von Griffin said. And although the team has been placed in a new district that features teams that are consistently highly ranked like Lave Travis and Westlake, the team is ready for the challenge, Griffin said.

“We are ready for any challenge heading our way and will give it our all,” he said.

Griffin said he is looking for the team to make improvements that the players can make from game to game.

“We also came in with so few girls with varsity experience this year and I just want to see the steady improvement out of that group,” he said.

Griffin said that one of their challenges is that there are not many experienced players on the team.

“With being such a young group and not understanding how fast the game is going to be once you go from JV soccer to being able to play varsity soccer,” Griffin said. “(They are having) to adjust at that speed and the skill that the players have, adjusting to that and being able to make plays in the game.”

Griffin said that although they are in a tough district, he sees that as a good thing because it will force the players to rise to their opponents’ level.

“Well it is a jam-packed district with a lot of schools that are used to making playoff runs,” he said. “So it’s highly competitive which is good for us. So the more of a challenge that we can see that’s going to cause us to rise our level up, too. We don’t want to stay where we are at right now. We want to meet that challenge and rise up to that level.”

Griffin describes the team as motivated and outgoing.

“The team is energetic and motivated they really want to get after it and prove that they belong there, “ he said. “They aren’t just there here to play soccer. They are here to take it seriously and want to be a respected team in the district.”

Griffin said that although they aren’t many seniors many players have stepped up and kept the team positive.

“I would say a lot of them have stepped up,” he said. “The group of seniors is a small group but they are definitely more vocal then they were as underclassmen so even though there aren’t so many seniors this year they are definitely being more vocal than they were the past year.”

Griffin said that the team’s work ethic is what’s going to help them rise.

“Keep working hard every day and to have a growth mindset once again where it’s concentrated on improvement every day not necessarily that I’m better than she or I’m better than someone else or across town you know,” Griffin said. “What am I doing to become a better player every day.”

Senior Erika Britz, captain of the girl’s varsity team, said she believes they have been working really hard for this season. She said she thinks the team has done great things despite not always winning their games.

“(I appreciate) Coach Griffin for always pushing (us) to the limit in order to overcome any obstacles in the way,” she said.

Britz said playing for an outside league helped her develop her skill this year.

“Playing in a club has really helped me out because it keeps me in shape and it keeps me learning new skills that we need in soccer,” she said.

Freshman Sara Hernandez, the only freshman on the varsity team said it feels good to be playing with the varsity team, giving her experience at a young age to play at the top level in future years.

In their final games of the season, the varsity team will face Austin High at Austin High on Saturday at 10:45 a.m. and Lehman at Lehman on Wednesday at 7:45 p.m.