As a professional violinist who conducts a youth orchestra, Kristin Parks knows a thing or two about precision execution.
What she has seen in her first season as Roseburg’s girls soccer coach is far from perfect, but considering the circumstances, what the Indians have achieved so far this season is a virtual symphony.
Last year, Roseburg scored one goal and finished with an 0-11-2 record. This season, the Indians have scored 18 goals and are 3-2-1.
“We’re trying to get the girls to fall back in love with the game,” Parks said. “It’s been a rough couple years, so they were feeling pretty discouraged, and had lost their passion for playing soccer. We’re trying to get that back. We felt like that was the first thing that had to happen.”
Roseburg defeated Eagle Point 10-0 in its second game to end a 24-match winless streak. The offensive explosion lit a fire under the Indians, who had nine corner kicks in the game after having only seven all of last season.
“They were pretty stoked,” Parks said. “If you play soccer, and you score a goal, you just get that fever and you remember, that’s what it feels like to score a goal.”
Roseburg defeated North Salem 5-0 and Ashland 1-0 for a three-game winning streak. The Indians lost to South Eugene 4-1 in their next match, an improvement over last year, when they fell to the Axe 6-0 and 8-0.
Freshman Madasyn Van Acker and senior Callie Price lead the team in scoring with six and five goals, respectively. The team’s back line – juniors Kaitlin Riley and Katie Knudson and seniors Samie Bergmann and Sajannah Alvarado – also is much improved.
“They’ve played together for a long time,” said Parks, the mother of Riley.
It is the first high school head coaching job for Parks, who has followed in the footsteps of her parents, longtime coaches in Washington. Her mother, Sally Henden, coached the girls team at Olympia. Her father, Paul Henden, coached the boys at Capital.
Parks coached her daughter through youth soccer and has known many of the Indians from an early age. She said that the lack of club soccer opportunities in Roseburg makes it difficult to develop players.
“We don’t have the talent pool that a lot of the bigger cities have, so we’ve really had to start from scratch,” said Parks, whose husband, Matt Parks, is the team’s assistant coach. “We’re really working on ballhandling and basic technique that a lot of these girls didn’t get when they were younger.”
