The Sedona Red Rock High School girls’ varsity soccer team announced the cancellation of the 2023-24 season on Monday, Sept. 11.
The team only had 11 players sign up, two of whom were academically ineligible at the time of the announcement, SRRHS athletic director Pedro Ortega Sr. said.
In soccer, 11 players are supposed to be on the field at any given time, and teams are usually made up of at least 18 players to allow for substitutions. Sedona-Oak Creek School District representatives said safety concerns about not having enough players to allow for substitutions were the main reason for the cancellation of the season.
There were discussions about converting the team to an after-school soccer club, but head coach Stephen Hanks said it had to be “varsity or nothing.”
Four of the players have since joined the SRRHS volleyball team.
“We lost our first game 8-0,” Hanks said. “We ended up playing 9 vs. 9, as the Round Valley coach graciously agreed to make it an even field and not play 11 players. While the score looks like a wipeout, we actually played better than the score indicates, especially considering we couldn’t use subs and the girls were wiped midway through the second half.”
Hanks did single out the goalie potential of SRRHS player Angelina Hillyer
“It was always going to be difficult to field the team for the remainder of the season, if we maxed out at 11 or 12 players,” Hanks said. “Even if you have 11 on the field, you may only have one sub or no subs, depending who can make that game.
“One of the things I noticed about what happened on [Friday, Sept. 1] was we played well in the first half, even though we were losing four-nothing. There were a couple of lucky goals, and we missed a couple of shots … But because we only had nine [players], in the second half, they started to get tired. A couple of girls got minor leg injuries and they tried to play through it. By the first 20 minutes of the second half, we were already down eight [to] nothing.”
