Bloomfield, Girls Soccer Teams Deal With Drama

I went to Bloomfield's girls soccer practice today to interview Victoria and Gabriel Valdez for the first prep newsmaker of the year.

I talked to their friend, teammate and fellow senior Kimi McDaniel. I asked her, 'What's the biggest issue at the moment that could prevent this team from advancing far in the state tournament?'

Here's what she said: "It's our attitude this year. There's so much drama on the team. This is not even the third week of school and people are already hating each other, won't play well together. I'm just like, 'OK, on the field it's different. None of this is personal. Just kick the ball.'"

McDaniel, outgoing, amiable and seemingly honest, had this to say later in the interview:

"We're working on trying to plan an overnight retreat and not mention soccer at all. Have fun games. Because everyone has their cliques. And if you don't know everybody, you're not going to know how they play. You don't know their attitudes. So if you yell, 'Go get the ball!' they're like, 'Oh my gosh. She's mad at me.' They're not. You have to know them on a personal basis for their tone or else you get beat down and they're not trying to beat you down at all."

Bloomfield isn't the only team dealing with that type of issue. It was hard to miss a few Farmington girls' players bickering on the bench during a game last week, and Piedra Vista's coaching staff got rough treatment when they decided to play the Lady Panthers' bench players after building an 8-0 lead over Gallup.

Par for the course, I suppose, for high school girls?