Middle school has first boys team
Murphy – After holding out as long as possible, Bulldogs boys soccer coach Ken Ennis had to make the call no coach wants to make. Murphy won’t be fielding a boys soccer team this fall.
“We had to make the call officially that we just don't have the numbers to have a team,” Butler said. “So we just have to call the season and move from there.”
The Bulldogs finished 6-5 overall last season, and their 6-2 record in the Smoky Mountain Conference trailed only Swain County. Their season ended with a 3-0 loss to Starmount in the first round of the N.C. High School Athletic Association 1A playoffs. Murphy lost 10 seniors from that team and weren’t going to have any freshmen on this year’s team. Butler tried to find new players, but it wasn’t enough.
“Generally you would rely on your middle school team to feed your high school team,” Butler said. “It just happened we had a massive senior class with no incoming freshmen class from our middle school team. So that just created a bottleneck.”
Though it can be a challenge to get a program going again, Butler thinks this year is just a fluke rather than a sign of future struggles. There is a large group of eighth-graders who will be freshmen next year, and Murphy Middle school has a boys team for the first time.
The middle school usually has a co-ed team, but had enough interest to field a boys team in the fall and a girls team in the spring. The Smoky Mountain Conference does not offer soccer at the middle school level, which is something Butler hopes to see in the future.
“That’s one of the things that we definitely, middle school athletic directors and soccer coaches, need to be pushing for at this level, is to really get us founded as an actual conference,” Butler said. “It helps motivate these kids. They really feel like they’re playing for something.”
As far as local soccer, Butler said the local recreation league, the Cherokee County Soccer League is getting better, and kids also have an opportunity to participate in travel programs with the Cherokee Soccer Club. Murphy High School also had its largest soccer camp ever in June.
While interest is good, finding space remains a struggle. Teams practice on the outskirts of baseball fields behind Konehete Park or at a field behind the Lowe’s across from Murphy High. The middle school team played its first game at Andrews Middle School, which doesn’t have full-size goals. Neither of the practice fields are full size, which can be an adjustment when they transition into playing games on a regulation field.
For Butler, though, the positives outweigh the negatives. There are people who care about soccer in Cherokee County, and they need to keep pushing to keep it growing.
“It’s a great indication of the future where we’re moving,” Butler said. “But we just can’t be complacent. We have to nourish those programs to feed our high school programs so hopefully we don’t ever face this issue again.”