Tag Wildcats

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.

Millard West

Head Coach – Jacque Tevis-Butler

Previous Records

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

Previous Season Accomplishments – 2019 Class A State Champions

NEST Analysis – The 2019 Class A champions come into 2021 ready to defend their place atop the mountain. Under normal circumstances that is a difficult task, now also consider that this is a team made up of almost entirely new faces. Good thing talent is always prevalent at Millard West. Coach Tevis-Butler has designed her program to reload not rebuild. However, chemistry and experience are necessary ingredients for a successful season. Those more subtle characteristics are mostly unknown at this point. It may only take a few games, but more observation is needed for these new look Wildcats. Even with that uncertainty, it would be silly to view this team as anything less than an absolute contender. Nebraska Soccer Talk has ranked Millard West as the #6 team in Class A in our first ever pre-season poll.

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.

Contact us on our website or email @ nebraskasoccertalk@gmail.com.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, or listen to our podcast on Spotify.

Chace Hutchison

Although it is rarely covered by the traditional media giants of the state, Nebraska is filled with exciting and competitive collegiate soccer programs. In fact, Nebraska contains a grand total of THIRTY programs for men and women. Those thirty programs compete across a wide variety of collegiate levels including Division I, Division II, Division III, NAIA, and junior college.

Nebraska Soccer Talk is here to examine, cover, and promote all of these teams. This task has been made a bit more challenging by the circumstances created by COVID-19. Depending on the playing level, conference, and school, the season outlook changes drastically. Roster information can also be in flux, depending on the school. Despite these challenges, our staff attempted to put together the best program summaries possible. To our knowledge, we are the only outlet providing such coverage to our state’s college programs.

Just like Nebraska Soccer Talk, this column will grow and become more in depth as the years pass. In the future, we hope to provide sideline coverage of games, facility features, coach and player interviews. We look forward to the journey ahead. Thank you for being a part of our community. The sport of soccer is growing in Nebraska, and we intend to see it thrive.

Disclaimer – In the making of this article, team websites and other research sources were utilized. Although we attempt to avoid them whenever possible, errors can occur. Please contact us directly with corrections.

Wayne State College

Head Coach – TBD

Assistant Coaches – TBD

Mascot – Wildcats

Nebraska Homegrown Players On Roster – 

• #3 Morgan Rhodes – Fr – MIllard West – Mid
• #5 Brea Kreikemeier – Fr – Lincoln Pius – Mid
• #11 Olivia thompson – So. – Gretna High – D
• #15 Jaiden Thompson – Fr – Elkhorn High – F
• #17 Madison Craig – Sr. – Omaha Central – D
• #18 Payton Haliburton – So. – Omaha Central – Mid
• #21 Skylar Stueckrath – So – Elkhorn South – F

7/24 = 29%

Known Recruiting Class – 

• Kaelyn Reeves – M – Skutt Catholic
• Kailey Crawford – M/F – Iowa
• Molly Michaelson – D – Minnesota
• Maia Vack – M – Florida
• Alicia Green – M – Arizona

NEST Analysis – An exciting program that appears to be heading in the right direction. During the 2019 campaign, the Wildcats qualified for the NSIC post-season tournament for the first time since 2006. With that momentum, the program signed perhaps its most complete and diverse recruiting class during the 2021 cycle.

WSC is now undergoing a national coaching search as Joe Cleary decided to step away from the collegiate game. This is a process that we will follow with great interest as WSC is both an appealing and challenging job. High levels of support from administration and upgraded facilities make it a job that the right coach can flourish in. However, its rural location and rigorous conference schedule do present obvious challenges. 

The athletic department has done well with the last two hires for this position. This is not uncharted territory for the decision makers at Wayne State. An organized and thorough search is expected to take place. 

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 multiple different media avenues. The sponsorship process is easy and reasonable.

Contact us on our website or email @ nebraskasoccertalk@gmail.com.

Connect with us on Twitter, Instagram, or listen to our podcast on Spotify.

Chace Hutchison