Houghton Football Club girls U14 coach Pasi Lautala (right) chats with midfielder Alivia Baril before practice begins Monday on the soccer fields at Michigan Tech University in Houghton. (Daver Karnosky/Daily Mining Gazette)

HOUGHTON — They have not won a game yet, but that is not slowing down the Houghton Football Club’s U14 select girls team, which is in the process of completing its first season as a team. While they have managed to earn some draws, coach Pasi Lautala is really proud of how far the club has come since the roster was picked.

“Considering where we started? Amazing,” he said. “I’m not saying that they are the most robust team, but you have to remember that most of the teams we play have played for years, and they played together and stuff. I have half a team (that) started eight months ago, and I have a quarter team who started a month ago.”

The team is made up of Alivia Baril, Natalia Werner, Kayleigh Dart, Eleanor Barnett, Jeza Poovalappil, Elodie Brassard, Kaliyah Bach, Aubrey Hillstrom, Marley Fletcher, Allison Damsteegt, Lilyanna Rafelli, Olivia Niemi, Kenna Kallio, Eva Inal, Margaret Middlebrook, Samara Pyhtila, Liandra Williams, Cameron Van Karsen, Catherine Van Karsen, and Lydia Williams.

The fact that his team is willing to play hard and work together is something that makes Lautala proud, despite the lack of success in terms of wins. They found other ways to define success at tournaments in Menasha, Wisconsin, and Duluth, Minnesota.

“(They’re) not only playing, but they’re actually competing,” he said. “That was my biggest fear since we went to the two tournaments this spring. My biggest fear is that we’re going to go there, we’re going to get killed, and we are done.

“Everybody’s like, ‘OK, I’m not interested in that.’ So you go to two tournaments, and these are serious tournaments. These are not some little jamborees. We went to Wisconsin, and we lost two games, 4-0 and 1-0. We tied one game. Then we went to Duluth, and we tied one game, lost three, two of them by a single goal, and one with their own goal two minutes before the end. The last game was the only one that we lost by multiple goals, and even that was all in the second half, because literally these girls played four games in one weekend with two subs. So, I had seven or eight core players. They played literally four full games. They had nothing left for the last half.”

Lautala is impressed by how determined the team has already proven to be.

“They played,” he said. “Now, was it an even game? No, were defending, like, 90% of the time, but they kept up. Plus, we have the best goalie of the tournament.

“In the first tournament, everybody was excited when we lost 1-0. It was like, ‘Yeah, World Championship!’ In the second tournament, when we tied the game and we lost that one game by one goal, nobody’s going there, ‘Yeah, this was great.’ Everyone was like, ‘This sucks.’ So, they already moved past the ‘We are just here to survive.’ They’re like, ‘OK, now we want to win.'”

The girls have a wide mix of players in terms of experience, but they are still finding ways to grow together as a group.

“I’ll tell you, I mean, the attitude in the practice, because you have to again, remember that they started last fall, so many of them came here kind of like a social enterprise. But, when you look at now, when we do the practices, you can see the shift in pretty much most of the players that they actually come here,” Lautala said. “They’re like, ‘OK, let’s try to get better. Let’s actually practice here and get a little bit.’ You can see that everybody’s a little bit more serious. Everybody’s a little bit more concentrated. Even those who probably came here last fall to stay kind of see that, ‘I don’t know if they even like this.’ Some of them, the development has been amazing, so fast.”

The girls themselves are enjoying the entire experience.

“(It’s) a lot of fun, because I’ve never played with just straight up girls,” said Baril, one of the girls with multiple years of experience who plays midfield. “So, (now) I get to play with them.

“They’re a lot nicer. They cheer you up when maybe you completely miss the goal. Other boys are like, ‘How did you miss that?’ So they’re a lot more like, ‘You got it next time. There’ll be a next time. Let’s go.’ I like it a lot better.”

Another player with a lot of experience is Barnett. She has been given the chance to play different positions, moving from defense to the midfield. She has enjoyed getting to learn how her teammates play.

“It’s been a really new experience,” she said. “I’ve gotten to learn a lot about the game with different types of playstyle and different players in general. It’s been a great opportunity so far.”

She also agrees that her teammates are more supportive of her.

“It’s a more strategical game,” she said. “I feel like the team is more supportive and it’s a better environment in general.”

She has enjoyed getting the chance to see a different area of the field more often.

“Yeah, it’s totally different,” Barnett said. “It takes a lot more running, and I feel like I’m learning a lot more in this role. So, yeah, it’s exciting.”

Dart, who plays keeper, has really enjoyed the supportive nature of the team.

“It’s way better than playing with the boys, I feel like, because this girls team, since we started, it’s just been super supportive,” she said. “We’ve all been really supportive of each other and the atmosphere is just so fun to be around. I don’t know, just, it’s really fun.”

For young girls, having teammates who are supportive is a huge advantage.

“It’s a big difference from teammates who bring you down to teammates who bring you up,” said Dart. “It helps your gameplay. It helps your mentality. It makes soccer a lot more fun, and sometimes more competitive in a way, too.”

While their practice atmosphere has been pretty loose as the less experienced players work to learn the basics of the game and get used to playing a more competitive brand of soccer, the veteran girls agree with their coach about what is necessary for the team to take the next step and earn some success.

“(To) get some wins, (we need to) be more serious in practices,” said Baril. “Because we are funny, we kind of take everything as a joke. So, we need to be more serious, I think. But once we get more serious, and the new girls get to the next step where it’s not like, ‘Oh, you have to kick the ball with your inside, then we’ll really take the next step on scoring goals and getting those passes to the corner, or just being good at passing, scoring, shooting, all the things.”

Lautala cannot stress enough how far the girls have already come in one year.

“Just to give a contrast, this team has played two tournaments, seven total games,” he said. “If you count all the games that we played with this team since last fall, I think we are in, like, maybe 15. The last team we played in Duluth has played this spring eight league games and five tournaments. So they played this spring more games than the majority of my team has played in their whole life. And, were 0-0 after the first half. That was their top team in Duluth. Again in the second half, it kind of collapsed, because our girls were just so beat up, but to me, it has been the most amazing that these girls have been able to (do this).

“It frustrates them that they have to defend most of the time, but the fact that you can play tied with the top team, that’s crazy. They are good.”

Lautala said that a few of the current roster is aging out before fall, but he is hopeful that they can add some new faces and keep working to build upon what this first group has accomplished.

Members of the Houghton Football Club’s girls U14 team pose with the Michigan Tech soccer team after a game this past fall. (Photo provided)