| A Pleasant Grove offensive player heads the ball downfield while Carbon’s Veronica Cazares tries to defend. The Lady Dinos lost the game 9-0. |
At the end of the 2003 season, Carbon High girls soccer coach Dave Capalbo announced he would be stepping down from the program he had begun in 2000.
However, his retirement was short lived after new coach Tim Palmer resigned the program early in the preseason.
Tonya Henrie, who was Palmer’s assistant coach, took over the head position. Capalbo was asked to come back as an assistant coach for an undetermined amount of time.
This is Carbon High’s first season as a high school girls sport. At the end of last season, petitions to change status from a club to a sport were approved by the school board.
Carbon has struggled on the field so far this season, losing several of their games by a large margin.
However, Henrie said both the junior varsity and varsity teams are coming around and the constant fluctuation that has defined the early season is beginning to slow.
Many of Carbon’s preseason games have also been against more established, 4A programs, which doesn’t give an accurate prediction of the weeks to come.
The Lady Dinos will begin Region 8 play today against Delta High at Delta, followed by a Sept. 7 away game against North Sanpete.
Time will tell if a rocky preseason can be chalked up to a rocky coaching start.
Regardless, Carbon High enters only its fifth season with a girls soccer program and should be expected to struggle as it seeks an identity as the newest sport at the school.