The Lady Cougars begin their girls’ soccer season this evening, with a familiar face taking over the program in Emilee Terrell (Lang), who was assistant coach last season under Thom Hayes.

The year of experience gave her the confidence to coach at a high school level.

“I learned a lot from Thom last season as he was our head coach, and we are very thankful to have him on our staff again this season,” Terrell said. “I’ve also been around coaching for a long time, as my dad (Mike Lang) has been a basketball coach my entire life. He’s a great leader and I’ve been blessed to get a lot of leadership skills and advice from him.”

Trinity will open their season tonight at the Christian Academy of Indiana at 6 p.m.

The Cougars will then travel to Milan on Thursday before hosting their first home game of the new season against Rising Sun. That game starts at 11 a.m.

This year’s group has three seniors in Layla Jones, Abby Lorenz, and Delaney Williams. The coach spoke highly about the group of seniors.

“We have a great group of seniors this year,” Terrell said. “They all bring different strengths to the field during game time; Delaney and Abby are both solid defenders, while Layla is dominant as a midfielder and forward. They all have very positive attitudes and are great leaders.”

Hannah Helt, Addi Garcia Velasco, Bailey Reimer, and Rowan Sharp are the four juniors.

There are six sophomores on the 2024 team in Zoe Croquart, Taylor Kramer, Katie Malone, Catherine Masters, Olivia Pollert, and Mackenzie Pumphrey. The three freshmen are Clark Branham, Anyah Carrigan, and Keren Lewis.

Hard work and determination have been some of the themes of the team according to Coach Terrell.

“I would say our biggest strength is their determination and how hard these girls work to get better everyday,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s our experienced players or those brand new to soccer, every one of them works hard to improve their skills everyday.”

The team is improving with each practice. Terrell (Lang) spoke about the improvement from the girls’ over this summer.

“The team has shown significant growth from over the summer to now. We spent a lot of time this summer working on refining their fundamentals,” she said. “Their teamwork and communication has also improved significantly. We have a great group of girls that have worked extremely hard in practice these first two weeks and we are excited to see that translate to our first game today.”