- April 25, 2024
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Last season the Seabreeze Lady Sandcrabs lost seven starting seniors, along with their head coach. Former assistant and new head coach Kim Merkel knew the team needed to get to know each other quickly, in order to play better, so she took the Lady Sandcrabs on an overnight bonding retreat this past weekend.
“We’re such a brand new team with new coaches, so we just cooked together, made desserts, exercised, talked and really got to know each other,” Merkel said. “It was important for us to do this.”
According to Merkel, Seabreeze had never done anything like that before. The team has even created a special team ball, where each player put a word on it that meant something to her. Some of the words are “sisters” “love” “family” and “passion.”
“In our match against Flagler Palm Coast, they beat us 8-1,” Merkel added. “According to who we’ve beaten and how they played who we’ve played, we look a lot better now, and I credit the retreat a lot. I believe that we have nowhere to go but up.”
BOX: Lady Sandcrabs lose close soccer match to Matanzas
The Seabreeze Sandcrabs came up short a goal to lose 4-3 to the Matanzas Pirates Tuesday, Nov. 18, at Matanzas High School.
The Sandcrabs couldn’t have begun the match any better, with goals from Morgan Cramer (‘2) and Jenny Medei (’16) to quickly jump to a 2-0 lead.
Seabreeze relinquished the lead by allowing three goals in ten minutes to head into the half trailing 3-2.
The Sandcrabs’ Medei found the back of the net again in the first five minutes out of the break to tie the game, but Matanzas was able to score a fourth goal to win the match.
“We’re a rebuilding team,” coach Kim Merkel said. “We panicked when they came down the middle. We have a lot of things we’re working on.”
Although her team went away without the win, Merkel said, “I’m still proud of them. For them to connect as a team this quickly, that’s a win for me. We’re taking baby steps. What matters the most is what happens in January.”
