Terry Warf moved up one spot when Alexis Dalton stepped away in order to start her family. This opened a window 🪟 of opportunity for young Alec Horton to join the staff of the Lady Cavaliers.

Warf and Horton are different types of coaches than the other two duo’s running things under the Umbrella 🌂 that is Carroll County High School Softball.

Nick Cushman and Deana Burcham are just falling in love with the game, and they have the perfect combination of youth and energy.

Above them, we have the pairing of Rick Nester and Travis Leath. While that pair didn’t come over on the Mayflower, they were rumored to know Abner Doubleday. A lifetime of coaching x 2 at the varsity level.

Warf has been around the game for quite a spell, and tag teaming with Horton proved to be a solid fit. The team finished up the year with a winning record and did so while constantly playing short-handed ✋️, due to the shuttle of players between the two upper teams.

James River and Chilhowie were a notch above their competitors, but the Lady Cavaliers were a very tough out against the remainder of our schedule.

They came to the ballpark and coached up our Kiddos, from start to finish, and for that investment of their time ⏲️, we are grateful 🙏.

10-8-1

Forrest Johnson and Adrienne Harris McGuire are living the dream right now as our dynamic duo of soccer coaches are young and in love ❤️. Both are happily married, both are teachers by day, and coaches by night, and they are both in a serious relationship with the sport of their choice.

The difference between the pair is that the Johnson family has two little ones already, and the McGuires are still in the honeymoon stage of their marriage.

Yesterday afternoon, in the heat 🥵 and humidity of South Florida, I took another step in the direction of grasping just what it is that the two of them are chasing. First, at a FIFA ⚽️ watch party where Iran 🇮🇷 played Belgium 🇧🇪 to a Nil – Nil draw and later inside Hard Rock Stadium where Cape Verde and Uruguay 🇺🇾 finished up 2-2.]

From start to finish, the day was a fact-finding mission. Team USA 🇺🇸 currently sits at 2-0-0, and the game in our country has been experiencing a serious upswing for decades since the last time the Cup was played on U.S. soil.

But it had nowhere to go but up from back them, and it still has a ways to go by comparison with the rest of the world.

McGuire had little choice in the matter as she was born to highly competitive parents, and Dad 👨 was a soccer coach. She left The Hill as the All-Time scoring leader in the schools history and still holds down the #2 spot years later.

The next step took her down to Emory and Henry, where she continued to lace them up while earning her degree in education. Not taking the potential ” extra” year of playing time for the Wasps was softened by immediately stepping into the job of Head Coach of the Lady Cavaliers.

Forrest also went from The Hill to college ( Radford University – 2019) and straight back to a classroom and the position of Head Coach for the Cavaliers.

The biggest difference between the two is that Forrest has already found his other ” Soul Mate.” The challenge to being driven in the manner that these two are is finding someone who is equally determined in chasing the same dream. Jeremy Puckett is that person, and it has really helped that his second Son followed in his Big Brother’s footsteps by lacing them up for the Cavs.

I’m not sure just how Gremis crashed the party of eight, but I’m guessing that some money changed hands on that deal.

The future is happening now, and giant strides are being made by both programs, and the fact that both were once again in the regional tournament proves the point. The area is loaded with schools that are extremely motivated about their sport.

I’m not sure if a player from Carroll County will ever land a spot on a McDonald’s soccer cup, but it won’t be from a lack of effort by our coaches.

80 potential future Cavalier Soccer players attended the boys’ camp last week, and the hope is to have two middle school teams instead of just one (co-ed).

Now, the task at hand for Adrienne Harris McGuire is to find someone who is equally driven…. good luck with that one, Coach. Because if you look up the word driven in the dictionary, you might she Adrienne’s face beside the meaning.

Cavalier Soccer ⚽️, there is plenty of room on our bandwagon !