After an entire school year of learning the basics of soccer at the club level, the Rockdale Tiger and Lady Tiger soccer teams, now in their fourth week of practices, are ready for their first ever University Interscholastic League 26-4A season.
“Of my kids playing, only two or three knew how to play the game,” said head coach Gilberto Rodriguez, a 2010 RHS graduate. “The rest of our players started from scratch basically. But watching the program from where we began to now is amazing. They understand the concepts now, and they’re having fun, which is important to me.”
Rodriguez said both the Tigers and the Lady Tigers will compete in district 26-4A with Austin Eastside Memorial, Taylor, Cameron Yoe, Georgetown Gateway (girls only), Manor New Tech and Hearne. Manor New Tech is the only other school in its inaugural UIL season.
He got the ball rolling three years ago with a little help from the community.
“I got a lot of help from people along the way, especially Lin Perry. We went to Cameron to ask them how they started their program about nine or ten years ago. I was a Rockdale High School student whenever (Cameron) first started their program,” Rodriguez said. “Towards the end of my first year of teaching at RHS in 2017, Mr. Perry and I started putting together a proposal that we submitted to the school board. They liked it, and during the middle of the summer I got a call from Coach (Jeff) Miller asking me if I was interested in coaching the team.”
According to assistant coach Christian Pellot, 42 boys and 39 girls expressed interest in playing at signups.
“We had a lot of students that wanted to play,” Pellot said. “Unfortunately, the district games are played on Tuesday and Friday, so that eliminated a lot of kids who play basketball, as well as baseball and softball.”
Rodriguez believes RHS can be competitive even though the team is moving up a classification.
“I would love to make the playoffs. They take the best four teams from each district, so it’ll be tough for us. I do think if we put the work in, it’s definitely possible,” he said. “I want to compete. I can’t tell yet if we’re going to do big things this year just because some of the other schools have been doing this for a while.”
The boy’s and the girl’s teams will play in their first scrimmage showcase at Waco ISD, Friday, Dec. 28 against Waco and Robinson.
Both teams play their first official games on Wednesday, Jan. 2 at home against Caldwell. The girls start at 10 a.m. and the boys at noon.
Their next game will be at home Friday, Jan. 4 against Connelle at 10 a.m. and noon.
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