Grand Island – Class A Team Preview (Girls)

Previewing an upcoming season is never an easy task. To do so properly takes countless hours of emails, observations, statistical research, conversation, and reflection. Adding onto that difficulty are challenges, such as a cancelled 2020 season and lingering COVID restrictions, making our preview preparation feel almost impossible.

Despite these obstacles, the approaching 2021 season and its participants – whether that be players, coaches, fans, or families – deserve some semblance of normalcy. Soccer in Nebraska and all those who participate deserve to be promoted. Over the course of the next several weeks, NEST will overview EVERY high school soccer program in our state. This was done to the best of our ability using all of the information we could collect.

Nebraska Soccer Talk is here to support many fantastic teams, coaches, players, fans, and referees that make our game possible. One mission of this venture is to discover and centralize newsworthy information. This can only be done in collaboration with individual programs. As a whole, our sport must better promote itself in order to grow the player and supporter pool. We encourage every team to proudly and consistently advertise itself to us and the general public. The more information available, the more our game will grow. Soccer is a game historically left behind to linger in the background in the United States. That circumstance is changing, but that change will not happen automatically. Growing and covering all aspects of our sport will take effort from all of those who love it.

Disclaimer – To prepare for these articles, a questionnaire was sent to every school’s head coach and athletic director. Many of these questionnaires were returned in a timely fashion, others were not. Nebraska Soccer Talk prides itself on equal and in-depth coverage, but cooperation is needed to meet that goal. Please consider this to be our reasoning when it comes to article length and accuracy.

Grand Island

Head Coach – Brendan Hanaphy

Previous Records

Year Record
2019 1-13
2018 0-15

State Status – Front Runner, Contender, Dark Horse, Up-And-Coming, Building, Too Early To Tell

NEST Analysis – Clarity of objectives, youth outreach, and continual on-field progress should be the main focus points for the Islanders. Those three factors should be at the forefront not only in 2021 but well into the future. Simply stated, this Grand Island program should be able to produce more favorable results. It is the only Class A school in a relatively large community that has proven to be very interested in the game of soccer. Unlike many communities, Grand Island has a first class indoor soccer facility that can be utilized throughout the entire year. Upgrades to their own facilities should also be utilized to uplift this team. Other Islander programs, including the boys soccer team, have developed high rates of talent and success. This is a program that needs to flourish in order for the game to expand in the state of Nebraska. At Nebraska Soccer Talk, these are the stories we are here to cover. Coach Hanaphy and his program are worth supporting and covering. Once it “clicks”, the Lady Islander will be dangerous on the state stage. Those developments will be exciting when and if they do come.

 

Thank you for reading and being a part of our new community. A like, share, comment or recommendation of content would be greatly appreciated. In order to financially support our efforts, sponsorship/partnership opportunities have become available. Sponsors will receive vast exposure to the Nebraska soccer community through different media avenues. The sponsorship process is easy and reasonable.

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