By Tom Nader

Publisher and Editor

The journey can be a bit of a blur sometimes.

Training days come and go.

Game nights are here and then gone.

The season’s end approaches faster than the wait for the season’s start.

Along the way, though, there has been one common theme for the Waterloo girls soccer team in 2022: Success.

The Vikings are now one win away from clinching their first-ever league championship for a program that began in 2007.

Waterloo, which is an astounding 13-0-1 and holds a goal differential of plus-83 (98 to 15), has two regular-season games remaining. The Bikes play at Crestview on Monday and at Liberty on Wednesday.

The group needs one win to clinch at least a share of the Mahoning Valley Athletic Conference Scarlet Division championship. A pair of wins would give Waterloo the outright title.

Through it all, first-year head coach Bill Jackson, who took over the program after coaching at the club level, may be the only person smiling bigger than his players.

“Proud is an understatement. I am ecstatic for them,” Jackson said. “I feel like they deserve every success they receive, every accolade and every bit of press. They are a program-changing group of young ladies and they are striving to set the bar for the future.”

Like any successful team, the results are simply the creation of work that began months ago.

It was during those hot, humid summer months that the identity of Waterloo’s season began.

Three team goals were established:

1. To get better every day
2. Win the league
3. Get to November

The Vikings have fulfilled 33 percent of those goals, with the second goal on the list within grasp and the third item acting as motivation for postseason play.

“We hope for a good seed for the postseason, and we are working hard to prepare for a postseason run. We want to play as long as we can and enjoy this journey,” Jackson said.

In order to remain hyper-focused on the goals, the team came up with a team motto: The Chase.”

“The girls are chasing their goals, improvement and history this season,” Jackson said, summing up his team’s season-long theme.

It is an idea that could also be applied to Waterloo’s opponents this season, who have been chasing the Vikings since game one.

Waterloo has pushed its dominance on the opposition led by a talented group that has racked impressive statistics.

Junior captain Kaira English has netted 39 goals this season, pushing her career total to 132, while also collecting eight assists this year.

Olivia Boyle is second on the team in goals with 19 and also has eight assists. Rose Couts has 15 goals and seven assists, while captain Sydney Jackson is the team leader in assists with 19 and has five goals.

Captain Kayla Turcsak has six goals and seven assists, captain Lilly Foster has four assists and Lillie Snyder has a pair of assists — all as defenders that have allowed just eight goals as a unit this season.

In goal, Grace Yarian has totaled 61 saves this season and Sophia Wood has 25 saves.

“This team is special because of their work ethic and their unselfishness,” Jackson said. “They are willing to do anything to help their teammates and will sacrifice for the team. Everyone is ready to play their role in the team’s success and they are a close-knit group that just wants success for each other. They care about each other — unlike any other team I’ve coached.”

And the Vikings are on a path unlike any the school has ever seen.

A journey they are not ready to see end.