With football season over, winter and spring sports are starting up. Our soccer teams are getting ready for tryouts soon, and with new coaches, The Sting wanted an inside look at how this season is going to run.

The new girls’ varsity soccer coach Hannah Smith said that she is beyond thrilled about this upcoming season. Their tryouts were the week of Nov. 28, and their first game was a scrimmage on Dec. 9.

Last year, Smith was the JV girls’ soccer coach and moved up to head varsity coach this year.

“Going to the next level is nice,” she said. “There is a little more responsibility, and I’ve worked with these girls for the last two years, so it’s good to know them and continue to work with them.”

Senior Trinity Thornton has been on the girls’ soccer team for the last 3 years. She said she is excited looking at the growth of the team over the last couple of years.

Thornton said that the team has been practicing during their eighth period, as well as before and after school, and already she has high hopes for the new season.

“Seeing the practices, we’ve been putting a lot of work in for the pre-season, so I have a lot of expectations, and I think that this season is gonna go really well,” Thornton said.

Moving on to boys’ soccer, this year the head coach is Diego Oliveros. This is his first year coaching in Azle.

Oliveros has talked about what the boys have been working on, bringing in fresh coaching methods, and his feelings about this season.

“Over the summer was my first time getting to meet the team, and I think they have responded really well with everything we have asked them to do,” he said. “The hard work and discipline has been shown, so I feel confident that we will have a good season based off of the skills they have shown so far.”

Oliveros has also brought in new methods outside of the field, including catering more to social media. This year the team has an official Instagram page (@azleboyssoccer) that they regularly post on.

These posts include reels, updates on what they have been working on, and supportive posts. Oliveros gives us an idea of how this affects the team.

“[My] goal is to be very visible, and get information out there so people will come to our games and events,” Oliveras said. “It also gives the boys on the team something to be proud of, and it gives people on the outside the thought of, ‘I wanna be a part of that.’ We do not want to be a hermit-type team.”

As the teams come close to tryouts, they want anyone and everyone to feel welcome and open to joining the sport.

Senior Brayden Hutton is on the boys’ varsity team. He gave some advice for anyone who wants to join the sport who’s never done it before.

“The 2 biggest pieces of advice I can give is to just go for it,” he said. “If you don’t make it, you can always try out next year. It’s also really important to get in shape. We do a lot of running, more than the average sport, so getting in shape is a big deal.”