Erwin is coming off its best season in girls soccer in quite some time. From left to right, Mackenzie Hoerchel, Pamela Cazares, coach Dan Heath, Desira Lee and Amber Redmon.
ASHEVILLE – One good aspect of having young players is that they lack a sense of history.
Erwin’s girls soccer team was led by a bunch of freshmen who didn’t know of the losing past.
“They don’t know they’re supposed to lose. They think they’re supposed to win,” coach Dan Heath said.
The past was bleak. During a recent three-year stretch the Lady Warriors were winless, and in the third season didn’t score a goal.
Last year, after Heath and assistant coach Luis Perez took over the program, the Warriors won four games.
This season, which wrapped up last week, Erwin posted 10 wins and made it to the playoffs. School officials, Heath said, couldn’t find another playoff appearance in the last 20 years for the program.
“We still have a long way to go,” Heath said. “We’re still way behind the big three – Asheville, T.C. Roberson and Reynolds – but we’re on our way.”
The Warriors didn’t score a goal against those three opponents, but were only mercy-ruled in one game all season.
Still, Erwin’s recent success has gained some notice. Three players – freshmen Amber Redmond and Mackenzie Hoerchel and junior Desirea Lee – were named to the All-Mountain Athletic Conference and N.C. Soccer Coaches Association’s all-region teams. Heath was named the Region 10 Coach of the Year.
Hoerchel led the team with 16 goals and 12 assists, while Redmond added six goals and seven assists. Fellow freshmen Omarri Stover scored eight goals and Pamela Cazares added seven goals. Of the 42 goals scored this season, only five weren’t scored by freshmen, as sophomore Alondra Lazalde needed two and senior Ashley McClusky scored three.
The team’s goalkeeper, Savannah Kefelas, is also a freshman.
Heath said he hopes the team’s wins, especially two come-from-behind road wins, will push the girls to play better next season.
Only one girl played soccer with the Highland Football Club last season and the coach hopes more can play soccer in the offseason.
“That’s going to make the difference in years to come,” he said. “Right now we’re getting raw athletes and talent. They just expect to win the close games now.”
Heath said the girls’ talent, Perez’s ability to run good training sessions and an attention to detail is why the squad won more games this spring.
He hopes to change the mentality and he began by making the locker room more welcoming. He added flowers, photos of the U.S. Women’s National team and colored beads in players’ lockers.
“I go out of my way that when they walk in for the first time, and every day they dress in there,” he said, “it looks like it’s for women, for soccer and is a winning place.”
For now, Heath has Erwin moving in a winning direction.
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