A year after taking over the girls soccer program at Lakeside, Craig Moses took the team to new heights, leading them to their first-ever state title game.
While the Lady Rams were unable to defeat Searcy in the Class 5A state final on May 22, Moses knew that he had a special group of players. When he took over the program in February of 2020, he asked what their goals were.
"They said, 'Coach, we want to win a conference championship and a state championship,'" he recalled. "I said, 'All right, then that's how we'll work.' ... And that group of juniors really bought in. They wanted to get there, and they wanted to win, and they had the talent to. I knew they had the talent to get there because I've been seeing that group from this high -- you know from from probably under 10 to now."
The team got off to a strong start, going 4-2 before the COVID-19 pandemic halted the season. After a 2-0 loss to Russellville in their first game of 2021, the team gave up just one more goal in their next eight games on their way to a 7-1-1 record before giving up five goals to Pulaski Academy, the last team they faced in 2020.
Lakeside conceeded just three more goals before the state final, a 6-0 loss to a bigger and faster team that had allowed just one goal all season.
Leading the Lady Rams to their first state title game in his first full season as the head coach, Moses is The Sentinel-Record's All-Garland County 2021 Spring Sports Coach of the Year.
Moses joined the coaching staff at Lakeside in 2004, taking over a boys soccer program that had just reached the state finals for the first time behind then-head coach Terry Vestal. Vestal, who started the program in 1998, led the Rams to the playoffs each year, except for its inaugural year.
Moses has continued that trend, the only time that his teams missed the playoffs since taking over was the 2020 season, which was halted at the start of the season due to the coronavirus pandemic.
One thing that Moses has implemented since he started coaching soccer was exit interviews for the players. Players are asked what they liked about the season, what they did not like, their goals and more.
"It has helped us over the years, and it's not something I did day one," he said. "It's something that I've kind of learned from other coaches and kind of took that from them and put it towards our program."
While it may have been the Lady Rams first trip to the finals, Moses is no stranger to the finals, having led the Rams to their first state title in 2018, but he admited that this group of girls is quite different than the boys he took to Fayetteville five years prior.
"The girls, I mean, individually they had some talent," he said, noting that the boys knew coming into the program what to expect and work toward. "They just needed to (get there) from teamwork. I mean, and you know I knew our conference wasn't gonna be the most dynamic conference out there. I knew that; we all know that. And so, our thing was just one game at a time. Throw in some teams like a Russellville at the beginning and like a PA, and throw in them type teams to try to get that balance that we could during the non-conference, and try to build off of those. See what we need to work on and things like that."
While the Lady Rams were unable to come out on top in the state final, Moses said that if given the chance, he would not change things going into the game.
"I wouldn't do anything different," he said. "We would go into it the same way. And hopefully we could turn it out a little different, but Searcy was just, they were just a little bit above us talent-wise. I mean, they were. We could play them 100 times and maybe beat them once in 100. You know, it's one of those deals, but I wouldn't done anything different. I thought we prepared well for that game. I thought we was, you know, where we needed to be; it was just they were bigger, faster, stronger than we were that day, and I mean they just are."
Moses said that one thing that helps when coaching girls is that body development is not as contrasting between a freshman and a senior, so despite losing 11 seniors from this year's squad, he is not worried about bringing in a large number of freshmen.
"We're gonna be throwing a lot of freshmen sizzle," he said. "We do have a good freshman group coming up, ... but in the girls situation, it's not a bad thing. It's not like boys; it's a totally different scenario when you're putting a 15 year old boy against 18 year old boy. In girl situations, it's not that big of a difference. The physicality part is not that big of a difference. So we have a good group of girls coming up, and, you know, we've got about four I can see right now starting for us next year.
Moses is also planning to get his players in the weight room and on the pitch during the offseason to help them develop into stronger improved players.
"Hopefully we'll get some development coming in in the offseason, that would develop some of these other other girls that played some minutes but just didn't play a lot of minutes," he said. "We need them girls to develop, and I think they will. And they'll develop into some good players and maybe a starter, or may get, you know, 40 minutes of playing time instead of 20 minutes of playing time during the game. So, we need some developing going on with all of our girls, but we do have a good freshman class that's coming up that I think that's going to help a lot."