As the Cardinal Huskies prepare to make their mark in the Northeastern Athletic Conference, they will do so by reviving a varsity program. Beginning in the fall of 2025, the Huskies will field a varsity girls’ soccer team for the first time since 2020.
“It is pretty great to have a varsity team again this year,” Coach Dakota Ward told The Weekly Villager on June 3. “I played soccer at Cardinal a long time ago, so it is kind of great to have a team that is coming back to the program.”
Cardinal’s first girls’ soccer program since 2020 will field nine returning players who competed on the junior varsity team last year and two freshmen from the middle school. The Huskies will complete their team with two newcomers to the program, giving them a total of 13 players.
According to the third-year coach, having 13 players may be a small number but it will go a long way for the team’s first year of varsity action after a four year hiatus.
“Hopefully we have 13 on the team which would be nice because then we could have a couple of subs,” he added. “It is still bare minimum but at least we can have a team.”
Ward said that Cardinal will roster only one senior on the team, meaning the majority of the team will be returning for the next few years, giving it a foundation to build on.
After the 2020 season, the Huskies did not have enough numbers to field a full girls’ soccer team. Ward said that participation numbers at the youth level had been promising for the last several years but the interest in soccer waned when students reached the middle school, as the boys had to choose between football and soccer and the girls between volleyball or soccer, with soccer usually falling to the wayside.
Since the 2023 season, a few girls were interested in playing soccer but because of how few there were, the Huskies combined the boys and girls to form a co-ed team, which Ward has overseen since he took over the program from Russ Buckley in 2023.
According to Ward, Cardinal’s co-ed team was eligible to play a varsity schedule but primarily faced all-boys’ team. They also competed against a few co-ed programs but mostly faced boys’ programs. Last year, the Huskies’ numbers for a girls’ team dramatically increased to a point where they had enough to form a junior varsity team.
Although it was still a low number, Ward said that he and Athletic Director Jimmy Soltis ensured that the girls could enjoy a full junior varsity season instead of having to settle to play on another co-ed team.
“That is the cool thing about Jimmy, I didn’t even have to plead my case,” Ward remarked. “He already knew that is what he wanted to do because it is very common once you lose a program, it is very hard to get it back, so he wanted to keep soccer going.”
Last year’s junior varsity girls’ squad compiled a 9-8-0 record and Ward said that he is optimistic that the newly formed varsity girls’ team can achieve a .500 record or better.
Although it marks the first year that Cardinal is an official member of the NAC, the Huskie girls are familiar with some of their new conference foes as they competed against several member schools’ junior varsity programs last year.
“Is pretty cool to be able to start in a new conference and it is kind of a clean slate We can go check everything out and play against other schools that we have not played against before which is going to be pretty awesome,” Ward said.
The Huskies will compete for a NAC title, but their schedule will also include several Chagrin Valley Conference schools despite no longer belonging to the CVC Valley Division.
Ward said that he hopes to schedule Kinsman Road rival Berkshire on the schedule, although it may not happen this season because it is the first full varsity season for the Cardinal girls.
“Obviously I have been a Cardinal person my entire life,” he said. “I think those games are more fun to me than anything It is not always about winning and losing them, it is just about going in there and having to compete against another team.”
While the Huskies girls’ soccer team is going to be newcomers to the NAC, Ward said that he is most excited about the team gaining life skills from finally getting to enjoy a varsity season.
