By Matt Mauney | Associate Editor
Coming off back-to-back trips to regionals, the Plant City girls’ soccer team is building a winning tradition for a program that had not seen much success in the past.
PCHS alum Caleb Roberts is stepping in as the new head coach of the Lady Raiders and plans to keep the program moving in the right direction.
“This year, we absolutely want to win districts again, and to be honest, we’re not writing state out of the cards,” said Roberts, who played center-mid for Plant City from 2000 to 2004, before playing in college at Palm Beach Atlantic University, in West Palm Beach. “We’re expecting to keep building on regionals and see what happens.”
Roberts’ family moved to Plant City in the late 1990s, and all three of his brothers also played for the Raiders. The oldest played from 1997 to 2000, and the youngest just wrapped up his high school career last spring.
Roberts said he always had an interest in education — he was a business major in college and teaches business at PCHS — and said he wanted to use coaching as a way to give back to his community.
“I grew up here through middle school and high school, and my family all went here,” Roberts said. “I knew I wanted to teach, so when a job opened up here at Plant City, I put my name in the hat for it and when (the coaching job) opened up, I knew it was something I wanted to do. I’m excited to be making an impact on the youth of our community.”
The Lady Raiders only lost a handful of seniors to graduation and have only three this year, so the group will once again be a fairly young one, but Roberts said there is plenty of talent and experience with this group.
“We have a strong junior class and a strong freshman class that’s coming in,” he said.
Several of those freshmen will be stepping in and contributing right away, according to Roberts, including defender Deanna Rodriguez.
“She’ll be an impact freshman for us,” he said.
Rodriguez said she is excited to contribute to the team early.
“I’m looking forward to getting to start and helping out the team any way I can,” she said.
Sophomore Taylor Michael returns in goal for Plant City. She saw some time at the position last year as a freshman, splitting time with senior Kiestra Castagno.
Kellee Brown is one of three seniors on this year’s squad. The center back has seen the progression of the Plant City girls’ program first hand.
“When I came here as a freshman, no one expected us to be good, because we never won,” Brown said. “We started winning some that year and got better every year after that.”
Plant City managed just its second winning season in school history Brown’s sophomore season and advanced to regionals with a 2-0 win over East Bay in districts. The Lady Raiders improved on that last year, once again advancing to regionals and winning a game, defeating Tarpon Springs 3-1 in the quarterfinals before losing a close match to Seminole.
Brown credited strong freshman classes and the fact that more players now play club ball on the side as reasons for the turnaround.
“Everybody knows the game a lot better, and that helped us gel as a team and as friends,” Brown said.
Also returning are juniors Ericka Lott and Stephanie Galloway, two of the leading scorers from last season.
Roberts said his group should be strong defensively as with past teams but said the offense could also be a strong point as well.
“We’re going to be really tough, as we have been in recent years,” he said. “Our defense is going to be incredibly strong, but I think we are going to surprise some people with our offense and ability to score goals. We’ve been more of a defensive minded team in the past, and I think we’ll surprise some people this year.”
The Lady Raiders open the regular season against Wharton at 7 p.m. tonight.
Contact Matt Mauney at mmauney@plantcityobserver.com.