Free State High School held its girls soccer camp on Monday as coach Kelly Barah gives his players some pointers on positioning as they receive a kick.

Free State girls soccer coach Kelly Barah knew that the 2015 season might be full of bumps and bruises with a large contigent of freshmen and sophomores getting quality minutes at the varsity level.

The Firebirds concluded the spring with a record of 6-10, and Barah hopes that the eight returning starters will take what they learned and build on it throughout the offseason.

“These guys were thrown per se into the den to go fend for themselves at an early age,” Barah said. “It’s just nice to see them come back with the right kind of mentality and the hunger and the eagerness to learn every single team tactic that we’re trying to implement this year because we think we’re going to have to play some different tactics in order to be successful.”

FSHS opened its summer camp Monday by getting back to the basics: passing and field positioning.

“Right now we’re working a lot with passing and third and fourth man running so that we can get good combination plays in the center and have the wing players releasing so we can get the goal-scoring opportunities,” junior Sabrea Platz said.

While the Firebirds return eight of their starting 11, only goalkeeper Mika Schrader and forward Marcela Ellebracht are seniors. Having Schrader’s experience between the pipes is reassuring to Platz and the rest of the Firebirds.

“We’re expecting more of the great play that she’s been doing in the past,” said Platz of Schrader. “We’re just really excited to see everyone getting better.”

Free State was limited to one or no goals in 12 of their 16 games last spring, so finding more a rhythm offensively is something that the Firebirds are keying in on as they prepare for the upcoming season.

Sophomore Sydni Beeley said that the Firebirds will need to improve in all areas of the field and not just up front in order to generate more scoring chances.

“We’ve had a year to play together, and we’ll be playing together all summer,” the FSHS defender said. “I think we’ll learn everybody’s strengths and weaknesses and have the varsity experience to go further than we did last year.”

With sophomores Beeley, Kate Odgers, Regan Sullivan and Maya Hodison and juniors Platz, Molly Bryant and Chandler Wiggins, the Firebirds have had back-to-back classes that have come in and contributed right away. Barah believes that the incoming freshmen have the chance to follow in the previous two classes’ footsteps.

“The look in their eyes like, ‘I want to be able to soak up any and all sorts of information,'” Barah said. “As a coach, you can’t ask for more than that.”

If the Firebirds continue to gel in the offseason, Barah thinks there is a good chance that it will show in the win column in the spring of 2016.

“A 10-win season is the bare minimum for us and trying to advance a little bit further than we’ve done in the tournament,” Barah said.