Armstrong Junior High Girls Soccer Program Hopes to Have Successful First Year

by Jake DeLuca

Armstrong High School is now in its second year of operations and most of the sports programs are as well, but there is a new program at Armstrong this year and that would be junior high girls’ soccer.

A process that took about three years of planning and waiting has paid off for the girls and Matt Riggle, the Head Coach for the Armstrong River Hawks junior high soccer team.

“I went to the school board to ask about a junior high girls’ program around three years ago. At the time they were still split (Kittanning and Ford City) and they said no. Once the schools combined I pushed it again, and we play six games this year,” Riggle explained.

Six games is not ideal, but it is a start. According to Riggle, a full junior high soccer season is fifteen games. This season is just a start though, and Matt said he hopes to start a varsity girls program next year.

“I’m going to push next year for a varsity (girls soccer) program because they use to have one. Then they quit because they didn’t have the girls, but now we do. I have about fifteen eighth and ninth graders right now, so we would have enough for a team,” said Riggle.

The junior high team is made up of mostly seventh and eighth grade girls, but there are a couple freshman on the team, and around half of the girls play soccer year round in multiple leagues. Matt Riggle went on to discuss why he chose to have two freshmen on the team.

“(The team consists of) 7th, 8th, and 9th graders this year; I have two ninth graders, Mykenzie (Riggle) and Haley (Thompson). I did that to make sure I had the numbers, but if they want to play varsity they have to play with boys which I am not too keen about girls playing with the boys, that’s why we want to start a varsity program,” Riggle said of his team.

Head Coach Matt Riggle was able to list some players to watch for when his team plays.

“(Look out for) Mykenzie (#27), Jordan Shaeffer (#12) , and Leah Shellhammer, she’s my mid-fielder. There are a handful of kids, but Mykenzie probably has the strongest leg on the team. That’s just a few (players) to look for if people come out and see us,” said Riggle.

The girls will look to play their first game on Friday, September 2nd at the soccer field in West Hills.