Nearly half of their roster is made up of freshmen and they recently lost a key midfielder to injury.
Meanwhile, the Lady Tigers feature three of District 13-5A’s top players - senior Erica Michaud and juniors Michelle Hagen and Chelsea Jones.
But that doesn’t mean the Lady Tigers - seeking their fourth consecutive district championship - are overlooking the Tem-Cats.
“They’re going to play us tough,” Belton coach Barry Elkins said. “I don’t care what 11 people he (Temple coach Oscar Bersoza) puts on the field, they’re going to play us tough. That’s something we know, that’s something we expect.”
Both teams enter tonight’s 7:30 matchup at Wilson-Kerzee Field 1-0 in 13-5A.
The Lady Tigers (12-2) opened with a 2-1 win at College Station A&M Consolidated on Tuesday, while the Tem-Cats (5-4-1) blanked Killeen Shoemaker 2-0.
The win was a confidence boost for Temple, which played its first game after shuffling its lineup by moving talented scorer Marissa Cervantes to midfielder.
“We’re not expected to win anyway,” Bersoza said. “I told my girls, ‘The cards are stacked against us, being young. But you go out there, prepare as best we can.’”
Belton has numerous all-district players back from last season, paced by 13-5A Most Valuable Player Hagen, Offensive MVP Michaud and Texas A&M commitment Jones, who missed last year’s final nine district games because of an injury.
But with all of that individual talent, the Lady Tigers have had to work on playing together as a team.
“What we’ve been concentrating on is not playing as individuals, because I do have a lot of great individual talent,” Elkins said. “(If) we want to compete at the level we want to compete at, we’re not going to be able to do it individually.”
Coming into the week, Elkins said Belton’s opening stretch - at A&M Consolidated and against Temple - was an important pair of games. The Lady Tigers wanted not only two wins to open 13-5A play but also a pair of wins over their biggest district rivals.
The Tem-Cats are looking for the same thing - a win over their top rival and a 2-0 start.
With such a young lineup, Bersoza believes the longer the Tem-Cats can hang in the game, the more confidence they’ll gain.
“They’re typically close games because of the rivalry, but Belton’s pretty stacked this year, no doubt about that,” Bersoza said.
The Lady Tigers swept the Tem-Cats in last year’s two meetings, winning 3-1 in overtime at Temple and prevailing 1-0 in Belton.
rschneider@temple-telegram.com
