Lady Bulldogs begin season with new coach

Practice began last week for the Douglas Lady Bulldog soccer team who begin the season under a new coach.

Mario “Peewee” Romero has taken over the head coaching duties replacing Angelica Chavez who retired after last season following eight years as head coach of the Douglas program.

Romero said he has 47 girls out for soccer so far and expects more this week now that cross country and swimming are done with their seasons,

The new coach said 12 seniors were lost from last year’s team and just three seniors return this year those being Karla Cordova, Elizabeth Duarte and Kianna Ross.

Coach Romero said when the head coach opening became available he saw this as an opportunity and applied for the position.

“I’ve got a bunch of energetic girls to come out and even though we’ll be young we still plan on making a statement in our section,” he said. “We’ve got some girls that do have some talent; it’s just a matter of where I’m going to put them on the field. It takes a team to win and we got some girls out here that are going to fill in the shoes that we lost.”

Romero has been pushing conditioning at practice trying to get the girls ready for the physicality that goes with playing varsity soccer.

“The girls that we have out here are physically fit and ready to go,” he said.

Assisting Romero this year will be assistant coach Carlos Chavez and volunteer assistants Gilbert Aguilar and Diego Guerrero.

“These three coaches know exactly where we want to take this program,” he said. “They have bought into it. I’m pretty excited they are out here.”

The coach said he will continue to do some of the drills coach Chavez did when she was coaching the team but he will also implement some things that he would like to try.

“As long as they are listening we will win some games,” he said. “I’m pretty stoked about taking over the program for the Lady Bulldogs.”

Douglas kicks off its season Nov. 19 at Buena in what will be the first game of the Brandon Bean Invitational. The Lady Bulldogs will host Sahuaro at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 20 in the second game which will also be Douglas’ home opener.