OLYPHANT — The Abington Heights girls soccer team heads into the season with nine returning starters.
“The year before, we had graduated almost our whole team, so last year was kind of like our rebuilding year,” said Lady Comets coach Errol Mannick, who still managed to guide the team to a 9-5 record and third-place finish out of eight teams in Lackawanna League Division 1 during the 2018 season, his second leading the team.
Senior captains Morghan Stiles and Anna Marchetta lead the list of returnees.
Stiles and junior Riley Mulherin return at forwards.
Marchetta and juniors Kayla Prezkop and Maddie Lucas are back at midfield.
The defense returns senior Jenna Patel and junior Grace Phillips with sophomore Karen Daley back in the middle.
Goalkeeper Abigayle Steenback, a junior, also returns.
Mannick said there still could be adjustments to the starting lineup, including where the returning players wind up.
“We’ve got enough talent that I don’t want anybody to assume their places, but of course, they’re the frontrunners because they spent most of a season there,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of talent across the board, but we need to see a few that are going to stand out and compete at a high level.”
Mannick hopes to develop a faster team.
“The technical skill is highly there,” Mannick said. “The thing that we missed last year was speed on the back and in the front. We had pretty good speed in the midfield, but we didn’t have enough speed in the back or the front, so we’re working on that.”
The Lady Comets open the league schedule Sept. 4 at home against Scranton.
