Girls Soccer

Kickin’ it new school

Harold Spooner starts first campaign as FHS girls soccer head coach

Nate Albin albinnat000@hsestudents.org

For the first time in school history, the FHS girls soccer team has a new coach. Harold Spooner comes in as the varsity head coach following the run of Ben Beasley, which yielded a state title in 2014. Spooner has a wealth of soccer experience. Since his childhood, soccer has been a big part of his life. “I played it growing up; ended up playing at Butler University,” Spooner said. “The last 14 years, I’ve been coaching in high school. I started at Cathedral, and then was head coach at Lawrence Central. I joined Beasley’s staff here with the girls last year. I have a lot of experience playing, coaching and watching all the time, so I’ve been around the game a lot.” The players have already begun to reap the benefits of Spooner’s wealth of knowledge. In addition to his soccer savvy, he has the ability to give players a new perspective on the game. “We’ve had a new approach to how we see things,” senior varsity goalkeeper Maria Okuski said. “Since he’s a psychology teacher, he has been involving more of that aspect into training and keeping our heads up, which definitely helps.” Okuski is one of seven seniors seeing significant playing time. Fellow senior, forward Taylor Hamilton, also noted some changes, but from an offensive player’s perspective. “The game plan has changed,” Hamilton said. “Beasley was a little more defensively-minded, Spooner is more offensivelyminded, but that’s because he was an offensive player in college. He is more focused on improvement than winning.” A new coach traditionally means a team will need an adjustment period. The team feels they are getting through that period well. “We are continuing to work with the new changes that have come with a new coach,” Okuski said. “It hasn’t given us a setback because I feel we are all pretty good at adapting to this new change.” MaxPreps currently ranks five teams from the state of Indiana in the top 10 nationally. Even despite the coaching adjustment and the highly-competitive competition, the team believes they can compete with the best in the state with the changes they have made. “Instead of just doing practices every day, on Fridays and days where it’s raining, we do film sessions,” Hamilton said. “We relive the games and talk about what we could do better offensively and defensively and see what can be improved. I’m really excited. The season is halfway in, but I’m excited to see what is going to go on with the season and see how far we can make it in the tournament.” Regardless of this season’s result, Spooner has found a new connection at FHS. Unlike at Lawrence Central, he is the head coach of the school that he teaches at. “There were a couple of years there where I was teaching at Fishers, but coaching at Lawrence Central,” Spooner said. “I loved the guys over there, I loved coaching them, but there was obviously a little bit of a disconnect, which made it a little bit harder. But this year, being in the building, being able to see my players in the halls and talk to them during prep periods and be able to be a part of their overall lives is what the coaching is all about. I’m definitely happy to be in that role.”

Girls soccer head coach Harold Spooner confers with assistant Samantha James at halftime of the 2-1 loss to HSE on Sept. 8. Photo by Nate Albin.