B-CC Girls Soccer on the Hunt for Another Title

For the Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School girls soccer team to continue its recent success and capture its fourth consecutive state championship this season, coach Robert Kurtz believes he will have to employ a new approach to suit the current roster.

“We’re going to go a lot deeper this year than we have in years past,” Kurtz said. “We’re probably going to play 17 or 18 girls, and we’re really really young — we’re probably going to start two or three freshmen and a bunch of sophomores.”

“We graduated a great senior class last year,” Kurtz added, “so we’re learning to live without them.”

Former Barons Alex Doll and Vic Gersh, two players who Kurtz credits with providing 80 percent of last year’s offense, are now freshmen at Stanford and Villanova, respectively. In their absence, the team must look elsewhere to make up the goal scoring and leadership that the pair had provided over the past four seasons.

“As I told the girls, we have 40 goals and about 20 assists to make up from last year,” Kurtz said. “So we’re dividing that by, like, seven people, hopefully. So everyone’s going to try to get four or five goals and a couple of assists, and that’s kind of how we’re attacking this. We’ve got girls who are up to the task, there’s no question, but it’s not going to be in clumps of 20.”

At least some of the offense that came from Alex Doll during the Barons’ 16-2-1 2010 season could be made up for by her sister, Eliza. The younger Doll, a sophomore midfielder, will be joined by junior forward Alix Emden in attempting to put pressure on opposing defenses this year. Emden sat out last year due to a back injury, but has shown during the preseason that her scoring touch remains intact.

Kurtz is counting on talented senior co-captains Kara Klontz and Hannah Levin, both four-year starters, to provide leadership and to help instill the belief that the Barons can still be successful even after having graduated such a talented class. Both plan on playing college soccer next season, with Klontz attending Georgetown and Levin bound for Williams.

In goal, the Barons will depend on junior Angela White, whose performance in the preseason has given Kurtz reason to be optimistic.

“She has looked ridiculous,” he said. “I mean, she’s been incredible. Some of the saves she made against McDonough — I’ve never seen those saves made in high school.”

Kurtz has enjoyed a phenomenal run of success in his time at Bethesda-Chevy Chase, winning five state championships in the past 10 seasons. Rather than dwelling on past glories, though, he prefers to push those thoughts aside to focus on what he needs to do to make this year’s team as good as it can be.

“It’s been a great ride — it really has been,” Kurtz said. “Honestly, I still wake up for preseason with butterflies, I’m so excited. So I guess as long as that keeps happening I’ll continue to do what I’m doing.”