Hawks aiming higher

The veteran Shawano Community High School girls soccer team is looking to improve on its third-place finish in the Bay Conference last year.

“It depends how we play against the top teams,” coach Bob Croschere said.

The Hawks finished with a 7-3 conference record, 7-5-2 overall, a season ago, and behind undefeated conference champion Seymour and second-place West De Pere.

“That’s kind of where we’re projected this year, but you never know,” Croschere said. “A couple of good games here and there, if some of these girls come together — we have a veteran team coming back — I think we can make some noise.”

The coach said expectations are high for West De Pere, which beat Shawano 1-0 a season ago. This year, the Hawks get the Phantoms at home May 13.

“We only lost four seniors last year,” Croschere said. “So we have got quite a few people with varsity experience last year coming back.”

The group includes sophomore Sarah Dickman, a second-team all-conference midfielder a year ago, senior midfielder Lindsey McFarlane and senior defender Haley Going, who were both honorable mention players last year.

Also back is senior midfielder Shania O’Kimosh, senior defender Peyton Going, junior midfielder Louisa Keenen and sophomore forwards Megan and Morgan Klitzke.

Replacing first-team all-conference midfielder Delaney Boelter, second-team defender Sarah Smith and goalie Hannah Boucher will be a tough task for the Hawks.

“There’s three, four people fighting for one defensive spot,” Croschere said. “Four people fighting for a goalie spot. The wings, there’s five people fighting for two spots.”

The program added a healthy group of underclassmen, growing its numbers into the mid-40s for this season.

“We had a decent group of freshmen come out,” Croschere said. “We had 15 of them. The numbers are there.”

A player to keep an eye on is freshman Colleen McFarlane, Lindsey’s younger sister, and a likely choice to nab a varsity spot.

The goalie situation offers another opportunity.

“At the beginning of the year we had five people wanting to play the goalie position,” Croschere said. “At this point, we haven’t been outside long enough for me to say this is our varsity goalie.”

Croschere expects to name a starting goalie, and get a much better sense of his team, by Tuesday’s game against Waupaca.

“I think once we get into early next week and get into that game on Tuesday, we’ll see what they’re really going to be made of,” he said.