PikeView looks back on whirlwind journey

By JED LOCKETT

GARDNER — On August 20, 2007, the PikeView girls soccer team played its first game in history. Just two seasons later, the Panthers are 160 minutes away from a state championship.

That first day was a watershed moment for PikeView High School athletics for many reasons. But the birth of a new program was as much a matter of necessity as it was an answer to competitiveness.

“As best I remember, the season prior to that when there was still a co-ed team, there were several kids playing, up in mid-20s, maybe even upwards of 30. A number of those were girls,” said Sam Hill, the only head coach the PikeView girls soccer team has ever known.

“We were working with the middle school program at that time and that eighth grade class that were just coming up to PikeView included Mariah (Farley), Kiersten (White), Amanda (Presley), Jesse Davis to name just a handful, and a similar number, actually six or seven guys.

“You just felt like for there to be long-term success in either program, they had to get separated. You had to have the girls playing on a team of their own and then that would allow the guys to have a little bit more success, too.”

The heart of that first team would be that group of freshmen that included Farley, White, Presley and Davis — all of whom will be playing in Friday’s state semifinal against Weir. Farley remembers the move from middle to high school like it was yesterday.

“At first, when at first I thought we were going to be co-ed and we weren’t going to be co-ed, we were going to have a boys and a girls team, I was kind-of upset because I had always played with the boys. The boys were like my best friends. And that first year I was kind-of upset.

“Then I realized how special this team is and how much we can accomplish. I can’t even believe that I even thought that being an all-girls team was going to be a bad thing.”

The group from the middle school was joining an established collection of players that had previously played on the co-ed team. Tara Hazelwood is the lone Panther left from that squad. For her, the shift was truly significant.

“It was a lot easier to be competitive as just a girls team because physically you’re able to match up better,” Hazelwood said. “To know that I can go out there and play my best game and to know it will be enough and to be able to play with people that I see as my best friends and being able to be close to everyone.”

The hot afternoon at Field 1 of the East River Soccer Complex began as a coming out party for the Panthers. By the end of the game, they had something else to celebrate.

In the 74th minute, Mariah Farley scored the game’s tying goal on a through ball from Chelsea East. The match ended as a 1-1 draw and the result proved to be a sign of things to come.

“My coach put me in there and he said ‘Try everything you can to score,’” Farley said. “I was doing it ’cause my team needed me. So I tried to step up and fill that role.”

“We knew we had a core of players that we had an opportunity to build around,” Hill said. “Bluefield had a fantastic team that year. They ended up beating Princeton in the sectional final and taking Woodrow to (penalty) kicks. They really outplayed us the entire game, but we hung around and took advantage of what we had to get the equalizing goal.

“We certainly felt like that we had the core of what could be a awfully good team relative to the teams in our end of the state. But to suggest that we had high aspirations of going to a state tournament would be unfair because we didn’t. We were just trying to do the best we could with what we had.”

“We started to learn how we can play together and how we can play off of each other and to know that we will always be able to hang in there for each other and always be together no matter what,” Hazelwood said.

The Panthers’ first season ended with a loss to triple-A Woodrow Wilson in the sectional final. It was their first — and only — meeting in the postseason. The WVSSAC voted to hold separate state tournaments for Class AAA and Classes AA and A the next season.

That decision was a game-changer.

“The split classes gave all the double-A schools hope,” Hill said. “I think Sissonville being the one exception, all the other state championships have been won by triple-A schools and if I remember right that first year if you looked at the boys and girls combined, regional finals which would have been 16 teams total, I think every one of them would have been triple-A schools. So the idea right off the bat when we found out they were going to split classes again with the kind of the core we had in place was ‘Why not us?’”

The Panthers took immediate advantage of the change in structure, going 14-4-4 and winning the Region III Section 2 championship. But they fell in the regional final to Pocahontas County, one step short of their ultimate goal.

“Certainly going into last year, we started the season with the idea that we’d have the opportunity to perhaps get to the state tournament and when things didn’t work out the way we would have hoped with the regional championship against Pochaontas County, that was kind-of the thought process through the offseason and going into this season as well,” Hill said.

This season, the Panthers maintained their winning formula. Hazelwood continued bonding with juniors Farley, White, Presley and Davis and with the addition of several other talented juniors, sophomores and freshmen, PikeView went 13-5 in the regular season then followed that with a 4-0 win over James Monroe and a 1-0 win over Bluefield to win their second straight Region III Section 2 title.

Then in a rematch with Pocahontas County, PikeView defense controlled the game and Mariah Farley had a goal and an assist in a 2-1 win that avenged the previous year’s defeat and sent the Panthers to their first state semifinal in just their third season.

The thought of a state tournament appearance was just a dream as the Panthers stepped on the field on that hot August day two years ago. Now the dream will be a reality and PikeView recognizes what that reality means.

“I’m somewhat of a high-strung person when it comes to being emotional,” Hill said. “It’s rare that I go through a season without crying at some point and that’s both good and bad.”

“Of course, I will be a little bit nervous,” Farley said. “But, you know, I think I’ll just be ready to just lay it all out on the field, just go full-force because we’ve got nothing to lose. We’ve come so far. Any result that we get, I’ll be just as happy because we put in the work and we can do it.”

“I know I will be nervous,” Hazelwood said. “But at the same time, I will be excited to be able to do this with the people that I consider like my sisters and just to know that it’s for them and to give it everything I can because they give everything for me.”

“This has been such a unique group of young women in terms of not necessarily their soccer play on the field, but just their relationship with one another,” Hill said. “There’s none of the cliquish stuff that I think a lot of other girls programs have trouble with. They’re all pulling in the same direction.”

Working with this group is the thing Hill will cherish most.

“Just being around them has been the best part,” Hill said. “They’re fun. They’re focused. In my opinion, they’re doing things the way they should be done. In terms of the way they come to a practice, their preparation for each game, their composure during games, their demeanor, the way they carry themselves — everything about them, they do it right.

“The biggest thing we’ve got to learn is to get out of the way and let them play, not try to do too much with them. Soccer is a dynamic game. It should be a very free-flowing game and these girls are good enough to know what it takes to be successful.”

— Contact Jed Lockett

at jlockett@bdtonline.com