HELENA — Between the Helena Capital girls soccer varsity and junior varsity teams, there are 17 sophomores in the Bruins program. Despite the youth on the roster, the Helena Capital girls have the chance to secure their first home playoff game since the Montana High School Association changed the soccer playoff format to include every team in the Class AA.
Part of the reason for the Bruins' success in head coach Brandon Price's eyes is the fact that they've been able to incorporate similar methods across the entire program.
"With that 17 sophomores that you mentioned, it gave us the opportunity to start with them at the beginning and work that up. And then having them perform at this level already has been great. It's been an exciting time for us," said Price. "We're looking forward to seeing what's going to happen over the next couple years. Not that we're counting this one out, because we're having a great season and we're in the running."
The Bruins currently sit in fourth place in the Western AA with a record of 6-5-1 and if they win one of their final two games, they will tie their collective number of wins from the last three years. As the fall wanes that elusive home playoff spot is getting ever so close.
"That was actually our goal at the beginning of the season," said senior Taylor Cornwell. "We came back from seventh place, the last two years and our goal is to get a home playoff spot. So just being able to reach that goal would be really awesome and I think that we would all be super excited just to be able to host it here and not have to travel."
But what does the future look like for Capital girls soccer? With such a young roster and this level of success, players feel like the future is bright.
"I think it's really cool that we have these sophomores that are all on this team, and that there's obviously potential for us to just keep getting better," said sophomore Kathryn Emmert. "We have a lot of experience coming up with us for the next couple of years and I think that will really help our team grow even more."
The Capital girls will look to maintain at least the fourth-place spot in the Western AA when they take on Missoula Hellgate on Tuesday and Missoula Big Sky on Thursday.
