Girl's Soccer Season Preview: Looking for spark, Knights look to past

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

MIDDLETOWN-The Middletown High School Knights Varsity Girl’s Soccer team can see the banners on the wall. They indicate that at one point the Knights were state champions in 2010, 2011, and 2012 making the state of Maryland succumb to what was as close to a girls soccer dynasty as you could find within the state of Maryland.

Since then, things haven’t been as kind to Middletown. It seemed as if years of exceptional talent passing through Knights Field at Middletown High School turned into average to decent talent. The Knights were many things during those state championship years; lucky, motivated, and just flat out fun to watch.

And, at times the sting of losing and struggles over the past couple of years have turned those memories of championships gone by into the back of people’s memories. But, all it took was one spark to awaken those memories and bring them back to life

It was November 3^rd of last year and the Knights were taking on the Damascus High School Hornets in the sectional semifinal round of the 2015 Maryland Public Secondary Schools Athletic Association 2A Girl’s Soccer State Tournament.

The Knights and the Hornets were tied at one in overtime, a surprise unto itself as Middletown was generally expected to be run over by the Hornets – a team that had eyes on a state title. Then, in a moment something out of one of those magical state championships came rushing back in.

Kaitlyn Ridenour caught a clearance from Lindsey Brant on the breakaway and then slotted it home giving Middletown a 2-1 win over the top-seeded Hornets and putting the Knights into the sectional final.

It didn’t matter that the Knights would lose their next contest to the Poolesville High School Falcons. And, it most certainly didn’t matter that by the time the state championship game rolled around, Middletown’s season had been more than put to bed with uniforms and equipment turned in and some of the athletes having already turned their attention towards college and the future’s that lied ahead for them.

The spark for this year’s team had already been planted after what can only be described as a moment that down the road might be seen as a defining feature of the Knights’ teams of the future.

Middletown is hoping that the spark that was planted last year manages to catch into a bigger fire this year as the Knights move into their 2016-2017 season with a cautious optimism that things may just fall in the Knights’ direction this year.

It will be an uphill challenge for the Knights as many obstacles await them including a tough schedule and a region that only gets more difficult by the year.

The schedule may be the #1 thing that will cause the Knights issues as the required Central Maryland Conference schedule is teeming with talent. From Oakdale to Linganore to Urbana, the Central Maryland Conference is loaded from top to bottom and because of the required scheduling inside the conference Middletown will have to take a crack at every team including the three powerhouses listed above which will no doubt force Middletown to play at the top of their level on a frequent basis.

The other issue that haunts the Knights is the tough region, that once the regular season ends, Middletown will run into when playoffs come. A region that includes Damascus and Poolesville is tough to say the least but because of reclassifications in the region now Middletown’s region will also include Oakdale and the Century High School Knights. Adding all those teams together make the 2A West Region one of the toughest, if not the toughest region in the state of Maryland.

If Middletown is succeed this year it will take a good bit of luck as the Knights face a gauntlet of issues this season. But, after setting the spark last year Middletown has an opportunity to carry that fire into something amazing.