Abbey Price of North Union takes a shot on goal as a River Valley defender attempts to block the effort. Price scored once during the 2-0 win for the Lady Cats. (Journal-Tribune photo by Sam Dillon)
In the small village of Essex – in the northern portion of Union County – is where a former elementary school, now the North Union Central District offices, sits.
There is an open field behind the building that once was the site of a baseball diamond.
Now, it is where 15 girls from North Union High School have made history.
Soccer has made its way to the school district and this field is where they call home.
The Lady Cats recently wrapped up their inaugural 10-game season with a 2-0 win over River Valley to bring their season record to 2-7-1.
Regardless of the record, head coach Justin Price calls the season a success.
“I didn’t know if we would make it through the season,” Price said. “I didn’t know if girls were going to not like it and quit.
“I didn’t know if COVID-19 was going to hit hard and force us to cancel,” he said. “When people ask, I tell them the season went great. We played every game we had scheduled.”
Before there was a team, Price was behind the scenes attempting to bring soccer to North Union High School.
His daughter, Abbey, has been playing soccer for several years with a club team in the area.
A freshman on the team, she was considering quitting soccer because North Union didn’t offer it as a varsity sport.
North Union made the jump to the Central Buckeye Conference a few years ago.
Every school in the circuit offers soccer, so Price thought it was the perfect opportunity to bring the sport to the district.
“The big turning point was when we switched conferences,” he said. “All of the other CBC schools have soccer, so I decided to go to the school board about a year ago to ask them about getting soccer at North Union.”
When a new athletic program becomes associated with the school, it must go through a three-year probationary period as a club activity.
One of the requirements is it must maintain enough participation during the trial period.
The Lady Cats must also maintain financial independence from the school.
They must provide all of their own transportation, equipment and uniforms.
Price went to work determining the interest in the high school to play soccer.
“I started sending out surveys to high school girls and I had 50 responses,” he said. “We had three meetings, then narrowed that down to 30 girls.
“Finally over the summer, we got it down to 15 girls who were committed,” Price said. “The 15 girls we started with over the summer, though, were not the same 15 that we have on the team now.”
Price said he had players come and go throughout the season.
“We had some multi-sport girls who decided two sports was too much to handle and we had some who came on late,” he said. “Emma Crusey, a senior, was only with us for three weeks.”
To help keep the roster full, Price linked up with another soccer enthusiast. Dustin Balzer.
He coaches in youth soccer leagues and has worked with Price to start a North Union Middle School team.
“We had a meeting to discuss putting together a North Union club team that was full of North Union Middle School girls playing through the Union County Recreation League,” Price said. “So now, we have middle school team full of sixth, seventh and eighth graders.”
Price said he hopes the middle school team can be a feeder program to his high school team, because they will need them in the coming years.
The 2020 Lady Cats had five seniors in the program.
That could leave the team a player short of a full roster next season.
Price, though, is relying on the eighth graders to help fill his openings at the high school level.
“Right now we have five eighth-graders who I think will probably play with us next year,” he said. “That is really the key to all of this and Dustin has been crucial in generating interest.”
Like every other fall sports program, COVID-19 hit and shut down NU’s plans for a while.
“We had a big fund raiser planned for spring,” Price said. “We had to cancel and we didn’t have a back-up plan for funds.
“We had to figure out a way to make it work, so we scrounged around (to raise money).”
The other hurdle Price had to overcome was getting the team the coaching they needed.
He never played soccer, but does have coaching experience in basketball. He understood he needed help giving the inexperienced team the instruction it deserved.
“Teaching the game of soccer was my number one concern,” said Price. “I contacted Maddie Gantz, who had played high school soccer, to be my assistant coach.
“I told her I could take care of the administrative stuff,” he said. “I needed someone who knows the game of soccer.”
Price said he and the team, most of whom hadn’t played the game, all learned together during the season.
“There are things Maddie brought to the game that I didn’t understand,” he said. “All I really expected out of the girls this year was for them to work hard and learn something.”
Even with all his ducks in the row, Price realized the season was going to be a struggle.
As such, he wanted the team to have fun above all else.
“They knew they were going to be the underdogs every game, yet they went out and played as hard as they possibly could,” Price said. “Most of the time it wasn’t enough. So we wanted it to be fun.
“The girls worked hard and they saw each other getting better throughout the season,” he said. “I think that’s what motivated them.”
With one season now under his belt, Price wants to see the three-year trial period through to the end when it can become a varsity sport.
“My goal was to help get it started and find a coach, but I couldn’t do that,” he said. “Now I want to see this through to a varsity sport.
“I love this team and I have loved coaching them, but there will come a time when they need someone who knows soccer better than I do.”