Wolverines are State Finals Bound! | Kickin' It With The Wolverines Ep. 9

The Bentonville West Girls Soccer team is heading back to the State Finals! The Lady Wolverines defeated Jonesboro, Conway and Rogers in the state tournament to punch their ticket to Hot Springs. 

Alyssa Orange and Head Coach Kerry Castillo relive the playoff run and the excitement of playing for a championship

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Welcome into another edition of Kicking It with the Wolverines. I'm your host, Ellis Orange, alongside head coach Carrie Castillo, and it is an exciting episode. We have reached the pinnacle of the season. We've been talking about it all season long. All of these episodes leading up to the state championship game. And that is where Bentonville West will find themselves on Friday afternoon getting through the state tournament, gonna go compete for a state title. Coach already asked you once. Have you stopped smiling since Saturday?

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Absolutely not. Not one time. No, I didn't even take time to cry when my daughters graduated. I was just still smiling.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

That's awesome. That's awesome. And we're gonna break it down, but I just first and foremost, just so excited for you and this team. And it's been so fun to get to know you guys that I kind of feel like I'm a little bit of a part of it, as minuscule as that is. But just for this team, before we get into breaking down these wins. I mean, it you guys have been working for this for almost a year, and and here we are with an opportunity now to play for a state championship. And I saw uh, I think it was a tweet or a post that you had put out, and you put sisterhood in capital letters, and that has been such a pivotal pillar for this team all season long. Just how excited are you for the girls to go and try to compete for a state championship?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Pillar, that's the perfect word. I actually spoke to someone from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette immediately after the game, and he asked, you know, how does it feel, you know, or what, you know, what's the uh magnitude of this? You know, I said this is the fruition of the girls' goal to create a team of sisterhood, and this is the fruit of it. This is what it looks like. Yeah, so just so excited for them. They, you know, all three games were really exciting. The semifinal um or the quarterfinal was super close, uh, semifinal as well, but the the quarterfinal with Conway was nerve-wracking. It was also graduation day for us here at Bentonville West. So we had seniors literally leaving the sideline to head back home for graduation during the game. Uh, and I ran I ran across the field immediately after the game, right past the reporter. It's like, sorry, my kids graduate and I wave. And so it was uh it was a whirlwind, but it was just yeah, it's amazing. Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

That's awesome. That's awesome, and and I cannot wait to hear all about it. So let's start with Jonesboro on Thursday. We talked about that matchup and just again taking care of business, uh, the way that you guys play should be enough to be Jones Boro and you beat them five to nothing. Did it feel like everything was just clicking and and to see them have such a good start in that first game of the tournament?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Honestly, it was a I won't say it was a rough start, but maybe a slow start. And a lot of that is just due to the the difference in playing on grass and turf, you know, and the field is so much larger. And so it took us a little while to get used to that. So I I won't say we started rough. Our play was great. It was just different, you know, um playing on grass. So it took us a maybe about 20 minutes to kind of kind of figure out uh, you know, how fast the ball is going to run andor not run, and you know, and then what it was doing for us physically, making us you know change some of the areas we were trying to navigate in, etc. But once we settled in and figured those things out, then the quality of our play began to really be expressed. Yeah, and on dry day opened us up with an absolute banger from about 25 yards away, yeah, and uh over the keeper's head. And after that, then the floodgates kind of opened and yeah, yeah, it was great. It was great though. Once we got going, and you could tell there were there were some nerves, right? Um, very excited. Our kids were very excited, but still a little, you know, some nerves, playoffs, it's understandable. Once they got over that, though, it was good, it was great.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

You know, so sometimes they always say getting that first win is the hardest, right? And then you kind of start to feel it. And so for them to kind of just get that first swin and and maybe get a little pressure off of their shoulders, did you feel that after that game?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Oh, for sure. Absolutely. They were so much lighter. Um, you know, I was making a comment to my one of our assistants, you know, he said, Where do you think they are mentally? And I said, I've seen a sharpness about them today that I haven't seen before. They had an edge to them. And this was the the next day, you know, the the day before they were they had a lot of nervous energy and they were very giggly, and that's great that they were loose, but some of it was nervousness, you know. And so the next day though, when we played Conway, they just had a different look about them. When I got on the bus, they're very stoic and you know, kind of locked in, and and so that that was good to see though. And it was it really showed in the way we played, uh, especially late in the game. We were up four to three. Uh, we got up four to two, and then some of our seniors had to go, and so we completely changed formation. I think the actual article in the Gazette said Bentonville West goes up four to two and parks the bus. And that's that's absolutely what we did. You know, we had some players that we had to to replace and brought in some some ninth graders and some girls that that play did totally different positions than I asked them to play right there in that nerve-wracking part of the game. Five minutes to go, you're up four to three. They just scored on a penalty kick, and we got to hold them out of the goal another five minutes, and they were coming after us, and so that they came up big. The girls just locked in, really, you know, and and were really composed and knew what they had to do defensively. They just did a great job communicating with each other and moving together and taking away space, and we were able to close it out.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Yeah, just it it felt like one of those games where you know, obviously, Conway wasn't going to go away. You're playing in Conway, right? So for their crowd, it was loud. It was almost like a home game, even though they weren't on their own campus. But um, to be able to execute to where you can hold on to that four-three lead. One, obviously, that just speaks to where we are in the season, right? You know, we're at a point now where you're just playing good soccer. And two, everything that they have been through and the tough battles that they've been in in the 6A West overall helped prepare them for a moment and an opponent they had yet to see this year.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

It absolutely did. That's something we we talked about as a staff immediately after the game was you know, thank goodness we do have the conference that we have because we're we're facing these kinds of situations every week. So this isn't new, you know, for them. Uh, you know, new opponent, but the scenario is not new. And we actually train those scenarios in practice all year long. You know, hey, you're up a goal and you have this much time left, close the game out. What do you do? And uh it really showed. I mean, we we were awarded a corner kick um late, I think two minutes left. And rather than you know, taking the corner and trying to score another goal to win by two, it doesn't matter. They immediately ran over, and um one of our players knocked it into the player that came to her. She passed it back, and they actually got right next to each other to prevent the defenders from being able to get close to the ball. So just totally heads-up play on their part. And it's because we had to do those things. You're so you're absolutely right. Our conference prepared us. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Yeah. You obviously don't want to, I don't want to go back to last year, but you fell in that quarterfinals game, right? Or two years ago, or last year, right? Just to win that game and then to advance to play Saturday for an opportunity to go to the finals. I mean, for all those girls who are on this roster a year ago, you got one step closer than they did a year ago. And and I'm sure there was a sense of pride just overall. I know that the job wasn't done, but that would have that had to have been a really good feeling in that locker room after that game.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

Oh my gosh, yeah. You know, so we we beat Conway in double overtime last year, and I'm not gonna lie, I was, you know, they they were award the penalty, made it four or three. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, how are we gonna do overtime again with this bunch? And so, you know, we won that one, and then last year we were knocked out in the semis by BHS, and so we get Rogers in the semifinal this year, and they just had a different mentality. They they were hungry. Uh, actually, my my one of my assistants made a comment to me that they aren't playing like we have any other time of the year. There's there's a different mentality to them, like an edge to them. I said, Yeah, they're hungry. They got they got here last year and they're not done, you know. And so uh we came out and scored, I think, in the first five minutes against Rogers. Just absolute wonder goal. Uh the counterattack we put together was fantastic, and it got up on them, and then uh Michaela Sullivan, you you gotta keep up with it, and yeah, and so she got loose ten minutes left in the game, I believe, and had an absolute rocket uh that that went into the upper upper corners of goal that their goalkeeper could just she tried to get it, couldn't to couldn't get it up high enough to get it, and uh put us up two to zero. And so now we've got to manage 10 minutes and close another game out. We've just done it the day before, you know. So they were ready, they knew exactly what to do and what we were gonna ask of them, and and and and were leading each other. There's so much choreography going on on the field between the players, it was fantastic to see. It just we just knew, you know, in that moment when we saw those things. Yeah, we're going to the final.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Yeah, you know, I uh went back and I looked that the two times that you played Rogers, you beat him back in the semis to advance to the finals game on Friday of this upcoming week, but you lost three to nothing to them earlier, and then you tied them. Yeah, and so you guys kind of knew exactly what you were getting, but obviously the results over the last two games hadn't been what you wanted. And so for them to just really come out and just set the tone early and to kind of almost punch Rogers in the mouth and make them, or at least you know, challenge them to respond, says a lot about where you said your mentality was with that team when they stepped out onto the field.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Oh, for sure. And you could see it in our play. They were not, they were not going to allow the two previous happenings to happen again. Yeah, they just weren't. Um it was in their intensity, it was in the way that they challenged every ball. Um, the actual the goal we scored, the first goal we scored was actually a counterattack off of a turnover. We turned the ball over, they were in possession, and we pressed it really hard. Uh, Michaela Sullivan pressed super hard, created a turnover, so now we countered. And Rihanna Andrade got in behind everybody. Michaela found her and she just hit a first-time shot, full volley into the side netting. I mean, it was just everybody on the sideline lost it. We were like, oh my gosh. So we're another step closer. I actually looked at the fourth official and I said, Hey, can we go ahead and go to second half, five minutes left? Because I'm not gonna make it physically. I'm not gonna make it to the through the rest of this game, and so it was really funny, but um, yeah, it was it was fantastic the way we started.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

That's fun. Yeah, that's fun. So again, you get the win. So as time is running down, right? And you guys know you're up to nothing, this is gonna get you two hot springs for an opportunity to play first state championship. What was going through your head?

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Uh, please, clock, hurry up. Move faster, move faster. I actually said that in my mind and then out loud to one of my assistants. I was like, pulling my god, there's I remember there were three minutes and 32 seconds, and I looked at them and I said, This is gonna be the longest three minutes that I've ever lived. And uh, you know, they were our assistants were just great with the way they communicated with the girls on the side to tell them as they came off, hey, this is what we're seeing, you know, this is what we need to do tactically, etc., and helping me manage the substitutes that we were making to keep everybody fresh, because that was our third game in a row. We had to play three games in three days, whereas Rogers had only played this, is that was only their second, you know, and so we were we were dealing with fatigue and dehydration and things like that. And so we're bringing kids off and telling them you got two to three minutes, and then you got to go back and you got to do 10, you know. So it's this has got to be the quickest rest you've ever gotten, and you got to go back and battle again. And they were just so up for it. Our our sideline and our assistants did a fantastic job of coaching them through that and getting them mentally ready, you know, for what they had to do. Our trainer was sitting there waiting with wet towels, like cold wet towels, when the kids came off, just throwing it on them so we could get them recouped as fast as possible. So, I mean, it was it was insanity. It looked like a uh a battlefield triage on the sideline trying to get these kids ready to jump back in. But yeah, it was fantastic. And um, you know, as those as those minutes were ticking away, they were awarded a corner kick late. They're about two minutes now, and I saw a couple of their players walk to take the corner, and I looked at my my sideline, my assistance at this game over. Game over, you know, they're walking to take a corner and they're down two to zero. They need to be scoring a goal and they're walking, and we're running around and still shouting instructions at each other this game. So it in that moment then I that was when I was like, okay, I can take a breath. You know, this thing is it. That's it. We're going we're going to hot springs.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

Sure. Yeah, that's that's awesome. And it's been such a fun journey to follow along. We've looked back now, so let's look ahead. We're sitting here right now, taping this episode on Monday ahead of the game on Friday. What does this week look like for you and your girls?

SPEAKER_00 14:25

Today's gonna be getting our bodies ready. You know, we've only had they've only had a day off between playing three games, so we're just gonna talk today about itinerary and schedule, and that way they know what their week looks like so that they do have some structure. It's gonna be chaotic for them because they're you know, they get they have finals next week and they have makeup work to get before we miss school this week for two days, and so we're gonna show them the structure that we're gonna have this week and talk to them about what's really important and get their bodies ready. We're gonna do some more recovery today, um, mostly, and just get physically and mentally ready for the week. And then tomorrow, Wednesday, we'll prepare for the game, you know, the the other variables that we have to get ready, but basically just giving them structure, you know. There's all these fun things that we're gonna do, you know, to make it a special moment for them as the week goes on, but we want them to know hey, this is this is what we're doing, and the end result is the game, you know, and that's where we're headed. So keep the keep the eye on the prize, per se.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Sure, sure. And leaving on Thursday for a game on on Friday. Uh what is the what does the road trip look like? You have any of those details yet?

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Yeah, we're gonna have a send-off here with a police escort out of town, and we're gonna stop and have lunch and take our time and let them really just soak it in, you know, and spend the time with each other experiencing this whole trip, you know, the whole trip and the whole reason why we're going, and uh we're trying to get t-shirts made and um El Poblito is gonna help us with uh with some t-shirts and some dinner one night, and so we're just we're gonna try and make it as special as possible for them every second. Because you know, I was I was mentioning to my one of my assistants, I said, you know, not a lot of people get to go to one of these, much less three in five years, you know, or six years, and so this is really special, you know, and so we're gonna make the most of it.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, I think we've reached um our time of the day and our episode, our feel good moment of the week, which I have a feeling I know yours. I'm gonna kind of throw a little wrench on you too, because I have one.

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Oh, all right.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna I'm gonna let you go first.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:47

Oh gosh, uh, where do I start? You know, I mean it was it was such a chaotic weekend, but so fulfilling. Um my wife drove down, I think Thursday morning for a game, and so she drove that, and then uh Friday, she drove us back immediately after the game, and then Friday night, you know, my daughters graduated Friday night along with some along with some other seniors on our team, and so that was really special. That was extremely special to to be able to see those girls graduate and to present my daughters with their diplomas, actually, on stage. Um you know, just three hours after making your, you know, punching your ticket to the semifinal. Um that was really special. And then I drove back and we got in about 1 a.m. Friday, and I got up at five o'clock to watch film. And so but I think the the team feel good moment has to be the moment that the buzzer sounded. Um all those kids just rushed the field to be with each other, to be with each other. And I hug my daughter, and it dawned on me that I'm gonna get to go play for a state championship with my kid, you know, uh, and with all those kids, and just to see them with each other in the center of the field. That's uh, you know, when we won at 22, I told my assistant, he came to hug me, and I said, no, let's just watch the kids, just sit here and watch them for a minute, you know, that's the trophy, not the wood and metal, the kids. That's the that's the rule, and so that's gotta be it. You know, the the buzzer sounds, my assistants are all we're all hugging each other and hugging the kids, and they're all going mad with each other. Yeah, that's gotta be it.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah, that's great, that's great. So, my feel-good moment um with you guys. Obviously, I was trying to keep track as best as I could back home here in Fayetteville, just you know, looking at the scores and checking and doing all that stuff. Um, but we are friends on Facebook, and so you got tagged in a post by your wife, which was one of the sweetest posts that I've ever seen, ever, ever. Um, which was really and no, this is why you went first. And this is easy. So that was my feel-good moment. But I just, you know, we really we've talked about Candace a little bit on here and we've talked about your daughters, but I just wanted to give you a platform to just talk about how awesome she obviously is as a coach's wife. It is not easy. Um, and just you know, the support that she's obviously given you uh throughout the season and and all that stuff culminating to where we are now.

SPEAKER_00 19:41

There's a special place in heaven for coaches' spouses. Um it's immeasurable what she does. It's immeasurable. You know, she drove us back Friday. She tried to drive us back Friday night, you know, so that I could watch film in the car and she just couldn't do it. And I said, That's okay, I'll take it, you know. And uh because I was so ant still and thinking about the game, there's no way I could sleep anyway. But just uh, you know, she if if anyone knows my story, if they listen to the the special edition that you did with me, you know, my my wife Candace adopted my daughters. You know, she did not give birth to them, but she is very much their mother. And so she threw a graduation party for them um that she put together uh Sunday because I had nothing to do with it. I moved things and that was it. I was just the brute force, but she just is my biggest cheerleader. She's my biggest cheerleader in the stands and takes our kids. She has always taken our kids to our the big games, you know, and so I have pictures, actually shared a picture uh on Facebook and our on my personal social media of one of my daughters 10 years ago with a different kid of mine after the state semifinal when we were headed to the championship game. Uh, and now I had a one with that same daughter now on the team. And without Candace, without my wife, carding the kids, you know, to the big games and cheering for me. None of that happens.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

So they you guys have that game on Friday at noon from Hot Springs for a chance to win a state championship. And so uh I'm excited to see how that all unfolds. And it's been we obviously get one more episode, which will be fun to talk about how that game unfolds. Uh, but it has been so fun to be able to follow along with the way that the season has gone, all culminating too, obviously, on Friday. So thanks for letting me uh ride along with you guys.

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Thank you for being a part of it. I appreciate you so much.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

I really do. It's been fun. All right. For Coach Castillo, I'm Alyssa Orange. We will see you next week after the state finals.