Murphy – In a sport like soccer where it’s not ideal to play multiple games over a short time span, Murphy girls soccer head coach Kim Brownlee was not thrilled about playing three games in four days to open the 2023 season.
While that led to a little more fatigue than usual, it also allowed the Lady Bulldogs to learn on the fly, something that can be beneficial for a team with seven freshmen. Though Murphy dropped all three games, Brownlee sees her team improving and doesn’t think it will be long until her players round into form.
“We’re just going to get better,” Brownlee said. “We’re just going to get more defensive oriented, and we’re going to figure out how to score goals. It’s just a matter of time. We’re going to turn it around, it won’t be very long from now.”
The season started with a 6-2 loss to Summit Charter on March 6, where Murphy wasn’t really competitive. The Lady Bulldogs were much better the next day in a 3-2 loss to Franklin, even though they surrendered the game-winning goal with just three minutes remaining. They then fell 4-1 to two-time defending Smoky Mountain Conference champions Highlands on March 9, continuing to fight despite the Lady Highlanders jumping out to a 3-0 first-half lead.
“I knew that we would have some heavy legs tonight,” Brownlee said after the loss to Highlands. “But that’s just the nature of it when you’re dealing with the weather conditions and field conditions and you just gotta be able to do it. I tried to use a lot of subs in the first game, basically to try to
let that game go because it didn’t matter, and we pushed kind of hard (for Franklin) because we felt like we could win that game. And we did the same thing tonight.”
Like last year, senior Catalina Barreiro and junior Lailee Holloway will lead the team. Barreiro will control the midfield, while Brownlee moved Holloway up from the midfield to her natural position at forward after the first game, and she scored all three of Murphy’s goals in the next two games. Brownlee also likes what she’s seen from freshman Brooklyn Johnson, who is playing as a forward alongside Holloway.
As the season goes along, Brownlee is looking for the Lady Bulldogs’ success to start with their defense. The team plays too forward at times, and needs to learn to be more patient.
Sometimes in soccer, teams only need a goal or two, then can control possession the rest of the way. For Murphy, it’s about learning to balance the attacking mindset and learning when to hold back and play more in control, which will come with experience.
“You have to have patience,” Brownlee said. “I keep teaching them, we do film day. We do a lot of time watching our film and analyzing it and theoretically putting it into perspective. These are very smart girls. And the one thing I learned coaching women is they absorb information.”