From 2021 to 2023, the Eastern Montgomery High School girls soccer team was literally unstoppable.
The Mustangs won 55 straight games, outscored opponents 412-11, and won three straight Class 1 state championships across all sports, including the first state title in school history.
This team no longer exists, at least for now, as low numbers forced the government to cancel the program.
“You could say that’s the life of a Class 1 school,” Eastern Montgomery athletic director Kirk Litton told the Times. “If the numbers are low to begin with, you won't have much spare change to buy.”
During the Mustangs' perfect three years of operation, the program continually saw graduating senior classes that were larger in size than the freshman class participants. On last year's team, six of the 16 players on the roster were seniors and only two were freshmen. Two were third-year students and six were second-year students.
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Ahead of this year's spring season, Litton said only eight students have registered to participate in girls soccer. Although some efforts were made to acquire more players, the Mustangs were unable to acquire any more players until the season was canceled in early February.
“It's just finally caught up with us. We've been seeing it happening for probably three or four years now, but with what was going on in middle schools, the numbers were decreasing.” said Litton. “You would say it was just a storm. Everything came to mind at once, and it did.”
Additionally, some fourth-year players have decided to graduate early and will not be joining the team this spring.
Litton said the student-athletes who signed up to play women's soccer ended up on other teams, but two of them now play on Eastmont's men's soccer team. Some joined the track and field club.
“It was disappointing. We were hopeful we could do it,” Litton said. “I thought, in the case of these kids, we couldn't put the team together, but could they have found their own landing spots in other sports? And we participated. , they're on board too. That's what we're looking for.”
Litton added that bringing back the women's soccer team will remain a consideration.
“Hopefully in the future we'll be able to bring it back and we'll probably continue to look at it every year,” he said.
Contact Matt Case at mcase@roanoke.com