Fall Sports Preview: South River High School

South River High School sports teams start practice this week. For more information, check out the South River Athletics page. Here is an overview of where things stand for fall sports.

Field Hockey. Coach Katie Corcoran is returning with an impressive 16 win, 2 loss record from the 2011 season. Looking back, you’ll find similar stats going back to 2007. Corcoran is a coach who can rack up the Seahawk wins. Last fall, the team fell to Severna Park in the regionals, after beating them in regular season play. Corcoran will have to find a good number of new players—of the 24 spots on the roster, 10 players graduated last spring. And, with only two rising juniors carrying over from last year’s squad, the team will need to gel before the first game, currently slated as a scrimmage against Archbishop Spalding on Aug. 21.

Seahawks football coach Lance Clelland.

Football. Last year, the Seahawks went 6 and 5, besting their 2010 season (6-3). But it the road might be tough be tough because Coach Lance Clelland lost 17 of the 50 players on his roster to graduation, including wide receiver Michael Strange.  Quarterback Joey Stanton may remain on the DL for the season due to a shoulder injury from lacrosse. On the plus side, quarterback Connor Cox is returning as is running back LaVonne Chaney. Their first scrimmage games will be on August 18 and 24, against McDonough School and Archbishop Curley, respectively. Their first game of the season is against Chesapeake High on Aug. 31. In 2011, South River crushed Chesapeake in the season opener in 2011, 36 to 7.

Girls Soccer. Coach John Sis told the Sourcethat the women’s varsity program has four returning seniors (Beka Petty, Dani Stith, Shelby Olender and Lyndsey Robinson) and a great

core group of juniors returning to play. In addition, there is a player from Kansas who has joined the team. Last year, the team went 10-2 for the season, ending tournament play in a regional semi-final game against Severna Park. Sis said that they will be playing the standard 1-3-4-3 system. Tryouts were Saturday where about 90 players tried out for 25 spots on varsity and 20 spots on JV. Sis said that he is “looking forward to this year’s season.”

Soccer

Boys Soccer. The boys ended the 2011 season with 11 wins and 5 losses, falling only to Broadneck and Severna Park(they played Severna Park four times, including a pre-season tournament and the regional semi-final). The team will return relatively intact. Of 23 players, only five graduated in the class of 2012. Fully 16 of the players are class of 2013, so next year might be a rougher transition. The team slated  to scrimmage Chesapeake High on Aug. 21.

Cross Country. Runners should be training already or that running course behind the school is going to feel like it is longer than it is. The first meet of the season is Sept. 1 at home.

This article has been updated with new information about the status of football players.