Perry girls soccer sees growth and hope after season opener

At halftime, the Jayettes could be heard clear across the stadium laughing before they ran back on the field for the last half of their season opener. The energy was loose and contagious. 

Perry was trailing Des Moines Christian 5-0 at the time.

For head coach Bo Schatzberg and his team, that was plenty to get excited about. The defending state champions won 11-0 against Perry last year — Schatzberg’s first season with Perry — and the buses were loaded at halftime.

This year, the team had every right to get excited that they kept the score in check enough to play a second half. That ultimately was cut short, as the Lions took a 10-0 lead before the clock hit its final time but for all intents and purposes, this loss was twice as efficient as the last meeting with one of the state’s premier programs.

“It’s a good chance for us at the beginning of the year to see somebody who does it right,” Schatzberg told the Perry Chief after the game. “It really doesn’t matter how you start. It’s how you end the year, right?” 

Giving the Jayettes hope moving forward, the Lions are arguably the best team that Perry will face this season. If last year’s state champs only scored five goals by halftime, Schatzberg said he likes his team’s odds to play more competitive games moving forward.

Growing the Program

There’s no way around it: Last year was a  true struggle, as the Jayettes scored just seven goals in 2022 and never more than once in a game. That resulted in a lone victory over Greene County. 

That would be a reasonable deterrent for any potential prospect from joining the team, but Schatzberg said that the team’s roster has actually grown this year. And that’s not from constant recruiting in the hallways. 

“When girls hear their friends are having fun, they have to join them,” Schatzberg said. “I think the attitude on the team is right for us. There’s a lot of girls who were trying it for the first time [last season] and had fun even though we didn’t have a successful year.”

The Little Things

While the team’s ultimate goal remains to win games, Schatzberg said the team’s focus isn’t about scoring a certain amount of goals or hitting other milestones. 

Like Monday’s opener against Des Moines Christian, the team looks to see how much they can cross the center line and from there how many shots on goal among other progressive developments. And in due time, with more of those opportunities, the points will come. For many of the players, that could be their first goal.

That even extends to the JV team, as freshman Ayden Erickson scored her first-ever goal for Perry in the evening’s primer.

“Even though that’s JV, that’s a big deal, right?” Schatzberg said. “That’s the kind of stuff we’re looking for."

Next Up

Perry’s next game is another road trip, heading to Atlantic on Thursday to face the Trojans who won last year’s meeting 5-0.