I spent mid-day Saturday covering the Bay City Ladycat Soccer team.
Normally I’d have to admit covering high school sports on Saturdays is not my strong suit, especially like most recent days it was rainy, well, drizzly, then rainy, cold with temperatures in the low 40s and a 10 mph wind pushing the chill into the low 30s.
But Head Coach Darin Dabblegott has these girls playing lights out soccer.
You might ask how is that different from any other year, especially if you followed the girls.
And the answer is that it’s not different – Dabelgott coaches his teams to be uber competitive every year.
I know, I’ve covered several of them.
So, here are a few things to make my point about this particular form of exceptionalism.
Through Saturday, the girls’ record was 17-1-1.
They’re not only leading district – they’ve shut out every opponent in the first half of district, with the exception of Needville a few days back.
They did beat Needville 11-1 and it’s No. 2 in the district.
They were back in the shutout mode last Saturday and aiming to keep the shutouts coming.
As Darin puts it, “you can’t win if you can’t score.”
They have 15 shutouts through Saturday, which is a school record, and the girls are approaching a season scoring record of 126 goals.
The Ladycats also are on track to reach 250 program wins against Sweeney March 5.
Their last district loss was against Brazosport March 2, 2020, or to look at that another way, that’s 23 consecutive district wins.
Getting back to cold weather – and Saturday was that day – I asked Dabelgott if the weather was a factor.
I know, I know, they shut out El Campo, so how could it be a factor.
So I emailed that question, along with a few others.
When I got his answers back I immediately sensed how he may have been amused reading my question.
“We play an outdoor sport in the middle of winter. It’s not soccer weather if it’s not cold and wet!”
I laughed on that one, realizing I had personal experience in that realm.
Both of my sons played high school soccer in the Hill Country.
Texas is one of the few states where high school soccer is played neither in the fall or spring, but in the dead of winter.
I remember we couldn’t wear enough layers in my sons’ games.
Since Bay City has started the second half of the season, I have several opportunities not to ask Darin about the influences of cold weather.
