LN Suffers growing pains

Lawrence North High School girls soccer coach Bob Kouril was expecting a rough start to the season,

but his team won its first three games and debuted at No. 18 in the Indiana Soccer Coaches

Association poll last week. Pleasantly surprised, Kouril then watched his Wildcats surrender eight

goals in losing to two unranked teams last week.

Welcome to life with six freshmen in the starting lineup.

"I thought we would probably start worse than we did. Then, of course, I didn't expect the sudden

drop-off," said Kouril, whose team dropped only one position to No. 19 in this week's rankings. "We've

been able to create a lot of (scoring) chances but haven't been able to put (the ball) in the back of the

net.

"That's growing pains."

Lawrence North will have another opportunity to grow -- and, possibly, endure pain -- this weekend at

the Zionsville Tournament. The Wildcats will play Assumption from Louisville, Ky., at 6 p.m. Friday

then face No. 12 Culver and Munster beginning at 2 p.m. Saturday. A champion will be determined by

comparing records at the end of the event.

Kouril knew he was getting an infusion of talent from this freshman class because of the players'

experience during the summer club season. Jordan McKellar, Tabitha Stone and Allie Dellinger are

all starting in the back with Paige LaBonne and Kennedy Hathaway, who is still recovering from an

off-season knee injury, in the midfield.

Freshman forward Alyssa Pempeck has been the team's primary goal scorer, including a hat trick in a

4-3 loss to Ben Davis last week but has been learning to cope with double and triple teams as her

reputation has quickly grown.

"They've all performed better than we had hoped, especially for freshmen," Kouril said. "There's a

learning curve, but they're quick learners. We hope to play better ball toward the later half of the

season."

Lawrence North (3-2) has never won a sectional title in girls soccer, losing to Cathedral, which is

currently ranked sixth, in six of the past seven seasons. But the freshmen join a veteran nucleus led

by seniors Robyn Miley, a forward who has committed to Ball State University, and midfielder Katie

Gaetner to give hope.

To speed up the maturation process of the freshmen and help foster unity, Kouril had his team go

through a challenge course in the preseason with stations that included free falls that required

teammates to catch each other, and the players to share information about themselves.

"We do quite a bit of team togetherness," Kouril said. "We have a pretty good spirit, and it's a closeknit

group despite the differences in class. The girls have taken the initiative on that. They're a

talented group. We're trying to be there at the end."