Menchville’s Girl’s varsity  soccer  team play  their first game of the season Tuesday, March 15.  The beginning of the season has been just a little bit stressful for the Monarch girls.   February, the time to start conditioning and having tryouts, came around and the girls were not sure if their coach, Dennis Zollicoffer, would return from his service in the Air Force Reserves in time.  Then the returning varsity players got the text they all dreaded, “Just found out some bad news earlier today…This is one of the hardest text messages I’ve had to send.”  The text from Coach Zollicoffer proceeded to explain that the athletic director and principal had a solution to the problem and the girls were to be prepared for try outs on February 22nd regardless of the situation.

The tryout date  rolled around and the field was buzzing with what coach was going to walk up to the field that day.  Then they all saw it, the blue Cadillac rolled up and a coach all the girls were familiar with hopped out.  Formerly retired JV coach, Luther Elmore, saved the day and offered to coach the girl’s this season.   Elmore has been coaching at Menchville for over 16 years now.  His final season with the Monarchs he hopes is, “to help this team become better people and soccer players”.

All the girls on the varsity team have had the pleasure of being coached by Elmore in the past, and were very excited to see a familiar face taking over.  Junior, Angel Yahatta had this to say about Elmore, “He takes a different approach to coaching than Coach Z does.  Which isn’t a bad thing.  There are mostly the same team rules about being respectful, being on time, and doing our best in school.  Coach Elmore just always finds a way to connect what we learn on the field to something we can carry in our lives off of the field.”

The Monarch girl’s went to the quarter-final of the regional tournament in 2015.  With the coaching switch and the graduation of four valuable seniors, the Lady Monarch’s team is one to watch.