After a tough preseason schedule, Prairie Falcons girls soccer head coach Ryan Glaser believes this team can still defend their league championship from last year.
On Thursday, Sept. 26, the Falcons beat district rival Battle Ground High School, 2-1, in a game where all the action ensued in the second half. Senior forward Avery Hoskins scored both goals for the Falcons. Shortly after Hoskins’ first goal, the Tigers’ Reegan Gardiner answered to tie the game, but Hoskins scored the deciding goal in the Falcons’ victory.
The Falcons graduated 12 seniors from the roster last season, and Glaser said his six seniors this year have done well by leading the young team through ups and downs of starting 0-5.
“It’s a great weight off of our shoulders, and that’s what I told the girls there at the end,” Glaser said of the win. “It was much needed, we’ve had a really tough preseason, and we did that for a reason. The girls understood the process we went through with those four preseason games against really good competition, and the Kelso game was good. We just couldn’t find the back of the net. So it was a big relief for these girls to get that W.”
The Falcons kicked off league play on Tuesday, Sept. 24 with a 2-0 loss at Kelso High School. After their Saturday, Sept. 28 matchup with the Skyview Storm resulting in a 7-2 loss, the Falcons began their league home-opener with Heritage High School on Tuesday, Oct. 1, but results were not available before press time. The next play a road meeting with the Mountain View Thunder at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 3.
To claim the win against Battle Ground, Glaser opted to change the Falcons formation into a traditional one they used last year.
“The girls responded. We found our width better, which we were lacking earlier in the season,” Glaser said. “So the formation change was a fresh, new thing for them, and it really, really helped them.”
Also new for the Falcons, a fresh face to the coaching staff but a very familiar one to Glaser: his daughter, Braeden Glaser.
“It’s been phenomenal having Braeden on the roster,” Glaser said. “She’s back for a gap year in between her bachelors [degree] and her doctorate, and she applied and she was kind of a no-brainer coming in. She played in college. She’s a graduate of Prairie here, as well. I graduated here at Prairie. So having her here, having a female on the coaching roster is always a really good thing.”
Along with being an assistant coach, Braeden Glaser is employed as a physical therapy aide and has implemented preventative care including stretches, use of resistance bands and more with the Falcons.
For the father/daughter duo, soccer has been a bonding experience, and sharing the coaching aspect of the sport means a lot for them. Braeden Glaser said she enjoys her new role and working with her dad.
“It’s been really fun to kind of apply what I’m interested in career wise along with soccer wise and combining the two,” Braeden Glaser said. “I find so much joy in it, and I mean, it’s technically a job, but this is my escape.”
