The Lafayette varsity girls soccer team is off to a rocky start this year. The Lady Lancers have won just 3 of their first 7 games, including a crushing 1-0 loss to their rival Eureka Wildcats and an embarrassing 6-0 loss to Blue Valley Northwest, a school from suburban Kansas City.

“Honestly, we’re struggling a bit,” junior midfielder Devyn McDaniels said. “We haven’t had many wins and we haven’t beat the teams we were supposed to. We have a lot of practice to do.”

One of the reasons for the Lancers struggles may be their age. More than half of the Lancers’ entire varsity squad is comprised of underclassmen, including four freshmen. This relative youth and inexperience means that the Lancers do not have as much experience playing as a team as their competitors do.

“We just haven’t played together for very long, whereas most varsity teams are full of juniors and seniors, we have a lot of sophomores and freshmen, so we face stiff competition with our younger teams,” said McDaniels.

In spite of their early struggles, the Lancers remain hopeful about their prospects for the rest of the season.

“I do think we’ll be able to turn the season around,” McDaniels said. “I think that the season will turn around because we’re getting a lot more serious in our practices and we have a lot of good things ahead of us.”

The Lady Lancers next game is at home against the Marquette Mustangs at 6 pm on Thursday, April 16.