“Boo Boo the Beast” Strives for Excellence on the Soccer Field

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For many, making varsity in a sport is a huge accomplishment, especially if one is a freshman. Kyra Tisopulos, a freshman at CHS, was recently moved up from JV, to varsity girls soccer. Tisopulos has played soccer since she was five years old, and has been playing for a total of nine years. During this time, Tisopulos has developed an unusual nickname, Boo Boo the Beast. However, of course every soccer player has to start somewhere.

“I started to play soccer because I thought it looked really fun and a lot of my friends also played, including my sister. I enjoy it because it is fun and it is a great way to keep me in shape,” Tisopulos said.

In order to make it to the varsity level, one needs to be highly experienced. Tisopulos has gained many skills through all of the various teams and levels she has played on. Initially, Tisopulos played on the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) for around five years. Then, as she developed her skills on the field, club teams started to become interested. First, she joined the Claremont Stars club team and played for them for two years and then, when Tisopulos had become more advanced, she joined Legends FC, which she currently plays for.

When it comes to the level of play, varsity and JV are very different. Varsity usually has many juniors and seniors that are very experienced in soccer. JV is still very competitive, through not as much because the athletes are typically younger. Moving up to varsity meant that Tisopulos would have to be able to keep up with the speed and competitiveness of a regular varsity league game.

“I think JV has a lot of really good freshman this year, and we were a pretty good team. But I think that it is more competitive to play on varsity, because not all of the other high schools have a good JV team,” Tisopulos said.

Moving up to varsity in the middle of the season meant that Tisopulos was able to play with the seniors on the team. Senior Rebecca McLachlan has known Tisopulos for quite some time and knew that she would fit in perfectly with the team.

“Off the field, I think she fits in great because the team is really outgoing and silly which is totally Kyra’s personality. On the field she does a really great job of controlling the game,” McLachlan said. “As a center defender it is her job to communicate with the whole team to insure the best result. At first she was pretty quiet in regards to the communication with the rest of the team, but after she gained experience she started doing a great job with communicating and I believe that it influenced everyone’s level of play.”

In a normal soccer game, there are a total of 11 players on the field, each holding different positions. Tisopulos has played two separate positions on the the two teams. When she was on the JV team she played outside midfield, or the player whose position is on the outside in between the forwards and defenders that acts as both a defender and a offender, hence the name midfielder. However, when she switched to the varsity team, she began to play center defender. The center defender is the heart of the defence and stands in the center of the last row of players. Both positions require a huge amount of physical ability and intelligence to be able to suceed in what they are doing. Head Varsity Girls Soccer Coach, Tim Tracey, had a plan to keep all freshmen together, but little did he know one of these freshmen would be very important.

“This year we made a communal decision to keep all of our freshman together and on the same team, but we needed to move some bodies up from the defense to midfeild. We needed more players due to illness and injuries, and Kyra showed that she had the capability to play with the varsity team since day one,” Tracey said.

As the season passed and Tisopulos became accustomed to the idea of playing on the varsity team she began to show that she could maintain the same playing level as the others. She also found it a huge honor to be moved up in the middle of the season and will miss being able to play with seniors she met this year.