Girls' 2013 soccer season starts Saturday at Caldwell

The Mountain Home Lady Tigers open their 2013 girls soccer season Saturday at Caldwell.

Mountain Home girls head soccer coach Kent Ogaard was "extremely pleased" with the numbers that turned out for Lady Tiger soccer this year.

"We had a great turnout this year," the coach said. "At tryouts, we topped out at about 55 girls, which, since I've been around the team for three years now, is the most we've ever had.

"We actually had to make cuts this year, which is unfortunate for some girls, but it also allows us to increase the competition and basically get the better of the pick of the litter, I guess you could say."

Ogaard likes the speed and experience he has back this year.

"We've got some great speed in positions like midfield, and we have some experience -- it's a strength and a weakness at the same time -- kind of a double-edged sword," the coach said. "We have probably close to 12 seniors on our varsity squad, and we've got some great upcoming JV players that have competing together for many years and know each other very well, so we should be very competitive at the JV level and with our experience on our varsity squad, we should do pretty well this year."

Ogaard believes the 4A Southern Idaho Conference should be fairly wide open this year.

"When I've talked to a couple coaches up in the valley, they've had a lot of seniors leave last year, which can throw your team in a big tailspin or it can actually boost you up from players coming up.

"It's too early to tell at this point, but I do know we will do better than we did last year, without a doubt. We have some opportunities here to really put Mountain Home back on the map."

Ogaard believes their summer camp at Idaho State University really helped them come along.

"It's the first year that Mountain Home has gone to a college ID camp, which is used for identifying players that might play at the collegiate level. We took 19 girls to Pocatello, to ISU, and had some great sessions with them," the coach said. "We learned a lot -- the girls bonded a lot, so the summer sessions went really well, so I would say we're more prepared this year than we have been in quite some time."

Mountain Home opens its season with a conference match at Caldwell on Saturday.

Coach Ogaard hopes they'll be ready.

"We have a tough schedule to begin with," he said. "We open with Caldwell, away, on Saturday, and then we have another game on Monday, so come what may, we're going to get right into the fire."

The Lady Tigers open Saturday at Caldwell at 11:30 a.m. They travel to Middleton on Monday for a 6:30 p.m. game and have their home opener next Wednesday at 6 p.m. against Nampa.