John Bunting has coached the Mount Pleasant girls varsity soccer team for seven years and the boys for six and is enjoying quite a season with the girls.
As of late May, the girls’ team was 14-1-2. It’s one of the best starts the girls’ team has had.
“A couple of years ago, we had most of the girls as freshmen and sophomores and had success,” he said. “We had a difficult district loss last year, so we didn’t go as far as we wanted. Two years ago, we won the districts for the first time and made a move with the program forward. It seems like as juniors and seniors, these girls have embraced the idea of success and running with it. It’s probably the most successful season we’ve had with the girls’ program.”
Bunting said the team’s overall effort has been solid.
“We’re not scoring a tremendous amount of goals,” he said. “We aren’t giving up a lot of goals either. I would say our defensive effort is one of our stronger aspects. Giving up six goals total for the season when we play with only three defenders typically…we have a strong defense and a solid keeper behind them to give them confidence. We also have a core group of scorers. We have five main scorers who have done 90 percent of our scoring.”
The top scorer is Emma Kahn, junior midfielder. “She’s very a dynamic and aggressive,” Bunting said. “She’s very explosive. He goes from a good consistent midfielder to all of a sudden to defense. She has a good knack to find the net.”
Ashley Montgomery is a central midfielder who backs up Kahn.
Whitnee Foote, Katelyn Hartman, and Hannah Kahn (Emma’s freshman sister), have also helped with the scoring.
“Those five girls are usually in our book,” Bunting said. “They have something to do with 90 percent of our scoring.”
The Oilers have a senior goalkeeper in Kaley Pittsley. “She stepped into the role as goalkeeper a couple of years ago,” Bunting said. “She was trained as a forward. We lost our primary goalkeeper. She stepped in. She learned how to defend those goal-scoring opportunities. She’s tall and athletic. She’s going onto to play college volleyball. She’s good with her hands, jumping abilities, and seeing how the ball flies. She wasn’t trained as a true goalkeeper but does a good job and keeps the defense comfortable. She’s a leader in the back.”
Bunting has high hopes for this team in the postseason. “I talked about this being a year of firsts for us,” he said. “We’ll stick with that same team. It’s the first time we got a major team in our conference, Midland Dow. It’s the first time we’ve won our conference. We won our first tournament, were co-champs of a tournament in Petoskey. We’ll run with that same thing that the first time we have a run at the state championship. The type of game and the way the girls have risen, they’ve embraced the success, and they don’t expect anything less than to give it a good shot.”