JACKSONVILLE - Soccer in Clay County high schools has always been a high-level sport with multiple district titles and state playoff runs the past few years leaving teams looking to rebuild and reload each year.

On Friday, at the Sporting JAX Soccer Media Day at the Winston YMCA in downtown Jacksonville, area soccer coaches and players gathered for a quick glimpse at what is expected for the upcoming 2025 season. Tryouts were to start on Monday, Oct. 27 with preseason classics at St. Johns Country Day School on Thursday, Oct. 30 with Clay High, Bolles and Wolfson starting at 5:30 p.m.
St. Johns coach Mike Pickett, after a state title run last year, was with his four stellar scorers—Victoria Sarka (11 goals), Reygan Ropero (13 goals), Madisyn Baumann and Calli Berrang (both six goals)—at Media Day with the Spartans intent on building another state title streak.

"We just try to get better every day," said Pickett, 20-3-1 last year. "We only have a couple of new faces; we return a lot of good players."

Pickett, known for his rugged schedules, opens with Bartram Trail as one of his many state-ranked opponents with Fleming Island and Middleburg to follow in a first in a while with the Broncos.

"We reached out to play some county teams," said Pickett, with Clay and Oakleaf also on his schedule. "The bigger teams are Lakeland Christian, Bartram Trail (season opener), Bishop Moore and Niceville."

In their off season, Sarka noted that most of the team just worked together to be in great shape and watch film for tactics.

"Our biggest thing is to work out hard and work on our game tactics," Sarka said. "Coach Pickett's camps are the hardest in the area."

One key element of Pickett's attack is the throw ins where the Spartans' success has been throws to the head balls of Sarka and Ropero.

"I think Calli will be our top throw in person," Baumann said. "We work on those set pieces all the time."

Keystone Heights, with a new girls head coach and longtime coach Trevor Waters on the boys sideline, will host their annual Twin Lakes soccer tournament on Saturday, Nov. 1 with Clay, Fleming Island, Keystone Heights girls and 16 teams from the north Florida and Gainesville areas.

On field one at Twin Lakes, Clay and Keystone Heights' boys will play at 8 a.m. with Clay and Oak Hall at noon and Eastside and Keystone Heights at 2:40 p.m.
On field two, Keystone Heights girls will take on Santa Fe at noon, then the Lady Indians will play Palatka at 4 p.m.

For Fleming Island, the Lady Golden Eagles will have jamboree scrimmages on Wednesday, Oct. 30 with Creekside, Daytona Beach Seabreeze with coach Taylor Berry returning after a heavy graduation class looking to fill some roster holes from last year's squads. Fleming Island finished 7-8-3 with a thrilling region quarterfinal 2-1 loss to Mosley.

"We will have a small sized team, but will have good speed up front with Rylie Gardner, Ellie Sevier, goalie Emily Poucher and Aubrey Taylor up front," Berry said. "Emily Poucher returns in goal as one of best in area and she is just a junior."

Berry is looking to a strong schedule to get a region berth. Fleming Island opens with a road trip to Ridgeview then a road trip to St. Johns Country Day School, the defending Class 1A champion, with Mandarin, P.K. Yonge, Stanton and Bolles to follow.

Fleming Island's boys, 15-2-6 last year with a region semifinal 2-1 loss to eventual state champion Arnold High, returns with a massive void on the field with 12 seniors gone to graduation including goal scorers Ethan Medlock and Daniel Viscarrondo, but coach Roger Dailey also loses a handful of players to MLS Club teams for his elite level players including son Ryker Dailey and his 17 goals.
At Media Day, Dailey had Tysen Janda, a junior; Aiden Garcia and newcomer Nathan Burt.

"We have been working hard in the gym to get stronger and faster," Janda said. "We will be contesting a lot of balls and pushing the game. It's going to be hard to get us off the ball in scrums on the field."

Janda noted that a majority of the team traveled to Italy for some games against European teams and that brings a wealth of experience.

"We have one returning starter with five guys going to academy teams, so they don't play high school," Dailey said. "We kind of knew this was going to happen and we prepped our younger guys and junior varsity to play at a high level."

Dailey, successful at multiple levels of play; junior high, high school and club ball, figures the key for him is the process.

"Our physical presence is going to be attacking and physical," Dailey said. "Other teams may have more technical ability and we have to balance out with our physicality. We go 100 miles per hour to the goals and that makes it fun."

One key returner for Dailey is Jonathan Figueroa who was a spark plug when he entered the pitch.

"We get Creekside twice, Ponte Vedra and Nease so our schedule is a tough game all season," Dailey said. "We will scrimmage in house in lieu of preseason then get ready to open with Sandalwood."

For Orange Park, 12-4-1 last year with an early region exit to region finalist Tallahassee Chiles, who loses second top scorer Ryanne Robinson (22 goals) to Florida Gulf Coast University, was looking to bank off younger sister Rylynn Robinson's return with her 26 goals, but coach Kyle Valero, with dad coach Gary Valero on the sidelines, will be looking for a new face in the scoring box.

"Unfortunately, I don't think she is going to be playing soccer," said Valero, in Jacksonville with goalie Anna Wages, Amelia Hart and Journey Boyer. "We will be seeing who can step up, need a new striker, but our defense will be pretty good with Anna in goal again and Hart in front with good height and good head ball skill."

Hart will anchor the center of the defense with Wages behind her.

"With Anna barking directions, she will keep me in position to fend off incoming forwards," Hart said. 

Boyer, a sophomore, will be a speedy front runner to get to the goal.

Orange Park opened with a road trip to Episcopal on Thursday, Oct. 30.
Clay High had four players —Jessica Cruz, Cora Parker, Natalia Versage and Charlotte Andrus —with coach Stephanie Waugh as a strong contingency of players for the Lady Blue Devils to attempt a repeat of their region final finish two years ago.

"We have everyone back but three main players: Kirra Dodson, Lainey Winkler and Olivia Espino," Waugh said. "Madison Quang is key junior defender back with Tatum Waugh a probable starter up front to score goals."

Clay opens with a preseason game at St. Johns Country Day School and Tocoi Creek in the regular season.
Clay boys coach Wale Leyimu also wants to get back to the region playoffs of two years ago, but loses a handful of seniors and must mess with Fleming Island in the same district. In 2024, Clay lost to Fleming Island in the district final and did not advance to regions.

"We have our leading scorer back in Gavin Tenga with I think we have some younger guys that could get us to regions again," said Leyimu 14-3-1 last year. "That's the battle again, Fleming Island in the district."

Keystone Heights boys, 11-7-3 last year with a region berth, will be without lead scorer Aaron Wiley's 33 goals, but Noah Jaramillo with 11 goals last year looks to replace Wiley's presence.

"I was in the mix with goals last year with Aaron but want to be the top guy," said Jaramillo, who had teammate Trent Noble and goalie Elijah Ortiz with him in Jacksonville. "Just us three are our returning players so we will have new faces."

Keystone Heights will open with a road trip to Orange Park which Waters likes as an opener because it will be a rough and tumble game.

"We only had like 25 varsity guys at tryouts with the girls getting like 70 girls," Waters said. "I like Orange Park on our schedule because I want us to play teams that will make us better."

A new coach at Keystone Heights for the girls soccer comes with the retirement of longtime coach Roger Laurent with new coach Josh Hallberg bringing Kalli Williams, Alyssa Townsend and the one and only Katie Buchanan.

"I took over JV last year, now varsity girls soccer," Hallberg said. "We lost one starter and one goalkeeper with a really good freshman goalkeeper in Xana Briley."

With a handful of strong senior players coming back including Buchanan and Townsend, Hallberg will have a large group of players that can develop in the next three years.

After a 13-7-3 season last year and a knockout in the district 4-3A tournament as top seed from Eastside, the Lady Indians should be more experienced on the pitch.
"They all got experience last year as younger players and we think we can use that to our advantage," Buchanan said."We got our two top scorers back; Kayden Huntley (27 goals) and Halea Lam (21 goals)."

Keystone Heights opens November with Newberry and a road trip to Ridgeview on Nov. 6.