Loggers ready for soccer season

The Libby Loggers girls soccer coach, Joe Cik, is preparing for his final season as the program’s head coach.

“This will be my final year coaching the girls,” Cik said. “I’m moving to Great Falls. I’m really excited to coach this group in my final year.”

Last season the Loggers finished with a 1-10-1 record, but will have an experienced squad returning.

“We lost five seniors last year,” he said. “But, we have 10 players returning that gained valuable playing time last year. We have six returning starters, so we have a solid core returning.”

Cik has been the head coach for five years and he said that this might be the quickest team he’s coached.

“I think the strength of our team will be speed,” he said. “We got some girls that are pretty quick. I think we will have a lot more attacking ability this year than we’ve had in years past.”

Cik said that they his team may have a solid core returning, but that they will be inexperienced defensively.

“The area concern for the team will be defensively,” he said. “We might be a little shaky in that department. We lost a lot of our defensive leaders from last year.”

Cik said that his final season at the helm will be a successful one if the girls have fun.

“The 2015 season will be a success if the girls have fun and we are competitive,” he said. “I don’t measure success by wins and losses. The most important thing to me is that the girls have fun and enjoy the game of soccer. If they have fun and we improve and learn throughout the year the season will be a successful one.”

Cik said his team has been active practicing this summer as they prepare for the 2015 season.

“We have open soccer every Sunday from 3 p.m. until 5 p.m. at J. Neils Park,” he said. “That’s open to anybody in the community that wants to come play soccer. We are still doing that so if people are interested come on down. We also did a three-day summer camp and we had a decent turnout for that. I’m really excited to coach this group of girls in my final season. It should be a fun year.”

The Loggers will kick off their season Saturday, Aug. 29, against Hamilton at 2 p.m. They will hit the road for the first time Thursday, Sept. 3, against Whitefish.