By Hayden Swope
Maize South’s Olivia Oenning was a first team all-league and all-state midfielder last season for the Mavericks. This year, Oenning hopes to add on to all of her accolades.
“My own personal goals for this season would be to work on increasing my number of assists, making the All-State First Team, and continuing to all around prepare myself for college soccer,” Oenning said. “Outside of my individual goals, as a team I would love to end my high school soccer career with a state win.”
The offseason included training and conditioning with the team for Oenning, while also spending some time on her own to strengthen herself.
“In order to prepare for this season, my teammates and I spent a lot of time in the gym. Maintaining speed, agility and strength is important in the off season so you don’t have to work as hard to get back in game shape,” Oenning said. “Something I wanted to really focus on working on before the season was also watching back old films from last year, specifically our state performance as a team to see what I could sharpen in the coming season.”
With many wins and losses throughout the years, Oenning finds that the best memories are spent with the team.
“One of my favorite memories from high school soccer specifically was going to state last year and the entirety of state weekend,” Oenning said. “The bus ride there was so much fun, the nerves and excitement we all had going into it. The hour before a game is always the best, listening to music and braiding each other’s hair. Even though we didn’t win that day we all walked across the street later that night as a team to get ice cream and our previous loss didnt feel as bad. I think everyone was just happy to be together and play one last game one last time with this specific group of people.”
