New-look T-Breds set for state title defense
Feb. 26—The champs are back to defend their crown.
South Aiken's girls' soccer team has a different look than it did in 2019 when it won its second Class AAAA state championship in three years, then the coronavirus pandemic took away the chance to repeat from the 2020 senior class.
Still, this year is a title defense — and this is still the South Aiken girls' soccer team, after all.
"When you talk about defending our championship and all, it was definitely depressing," said head coach Dave Mihoulides, whose team opened Region 5-AAAA play last year with an 11-1 win over Brookland-Cayce just days before the spring season was canceled. "... It was kind of sad that we weren't able to defend our championship, but we're still defending it. It's hard, because you've got a lot different group. We're very freshman and sophomore heavy."
Despite the shutdown, the T-Breds kept working. Mihoulides passed along plenty of reading and study materials to incorporate into their training, and there have been plenty of opportunities to watch the top-level pros both stateside and abroad to help keep up their motivation.
Additionally, soccer was one of the sports that could still be played while most everything else was shut down, so Mihoulides said nearly his entire roster was able to complete a full club season.
The strength of this year's team should be its defense — no surprise there for a South Aiken program that allowed just seven goals in 20 matches in its last full season.
"Our back line is really, really strong. We've got a great goalkeeper. We're very, very young on a lot of the other areas of the field," Mihoulides said. "You know us — we like to predicate our team on strong defense and not giving up a lot of goals. If other teams can't put them in the net and we're able to put a few in, then we're good to go."
Last year was meant to be a transitional year of sorts for those younger players — their chance to get acclimated with the varsity program. Missing out on the season set them back a few steps, but they've still been hard at work to get better even when there weren't any matches to play.
"I feel like this team especially has the potential to be really good," said Anna Davis, one of the team's senior captains. "We saw it last year, and the fact that it got cut short is kind of sad so we just need to build the team chemistry that we were playing on last year."
A lot of the usual preseason competitions were scratched this season, meaning South Aiken's regular-season openers will be the first real opportunities to see what the T-Breds have.
And, as if there was a need for any more motivation, those matches next week — Tuesday at home and Friday on the road — are against rival Aiken.
"It's been a year of work toward it, especially since we didn't get to play them last year," said senior captain Hailey Roth, who signed in November to play at Wofford. "It's a whole new team compared to what we had in 2019, but we're still full of talent and young girls working their hardest. We're excited to show them the new South Aiken team, not what they've always seen."
A key player who will be missing this year is junior Ally Bollig, who has a torn ACL and will miss the season.
Like the other sports this school year, only the top two teams in each region will make the playoffs. The postseason has been a given for South Aiken for years, as has a deep run through the playoffs.
That's still plenty of matches — not to mention all of the other variables — away, and like always the T-Breds will look to hit their stride after spring break.
Talk of what legacy they hope to leave behind caused Davis to pause, saying just thinking about it might make her sad.
Roth didn't hesitate.
"I mean, I'd like state again, of course," she said with a laugh. "I think, of course, just leaving the culture of hard work and being a teammate and setting examples so that next year hopefully we have big shoes to fill."
