Riverview soccer teams use summer months to maintain momentum from playoff seasons

By: Michael Love
Saturday, August 2, 2025 | 11:06 AM

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When Jessica Garland was hired as the new Riverview girls soccer head coach in mid April, she had one eye on the immediate tasks of getting her footing with the school and the Raiders athletic department.

The other eye was focused on getting to know the mix of returning and new players who have designs on maintaining Riverview’s recent run of playoff success.

Garland was first able to establish a foundation with the team in the spring which led to the start of summer workouts which have given her an idea of how to proceed toward the start of official preseason practices only a couple of days away.

“This summer has flown by,” said Garland, a Franklin Regional graduate who has served as a girls assistant at her alma mater and most recently at Mt. Pleasant.

“I don’t know where the time has gone. It feels like we just started the summer training, and now we’re close to starting the season.

“Most of the summer has been conditioning and then letting them play. It helped us (coaches) see the girls, see what they’ve been doing, and how their skills might best fit into the overall plan. We’ve let them be a little more creative in the summer before bearing down leading up to the start of the season.”

Six seniors moved on from the 2024 team which went 12-4 overall and made the WPIAL quarterfinals.

But the 2025 Raiders will see a strong core return led by section all-stars Juliette Brun (defender/goalkeeper), Alix Delsaut (midfielder/forward), Hannah Hudack (midfielder) and Mary Quinlan (midfielder/forward).

“We’ve had really good turnout for workouts,” Garland said.

“We have girls who have been coming every week and putting in the work to get better. There is that excitement which has been building throughout the summer. The girls have enjoyed that success the past couple of years, and they don’t want it to end. Coming in as the new coach and a new coaching staff, we want to do well for them. We’re out here building on it and working to make that a reality. The girls have been pretty receptive to a lot of the changes so far and are willing to do what is asked of them. Change is not always easy, but they’ve really wanted to learn and see what is new.”

Several of the members of the soccer team also run cross country.

“It will be a fun to work with the cross country coach (Palma Ostrowski),” Garland said.

“I am sure we will talk often to make sure we’re not overworking them and that they stay healthy for both cross country and soccer.”

Riverview boys coach Mickey Namey said his team’s summer work has been valuable in getting a strong freshman class assimilated with the returning varsity group as the Raiders eye a fresh season after a breakout 2024 in which it went 10-7 overall, 5-5 in section play and made the WPIAL playoffs for the first time since 2019.

“We’ve been looking forward to them coming in,” Namey said.

“We lost some very important players to graduation, Chris (O’Toole), Drew (Hunter), Quin (Fischer), all team captains, leading goal scorers, the starting goalie. The excitement comes in seeing the younger players stepping up and filling those roles of a goal scorer or the starting goalkeeper. There is a lot of skill with the new group. The returning guys couldn’t wait to get them into the system. There might be smaller numbers again with about 15 or so, but the energy and team mentality is always there.”

Namey said several of the younger players got good offseason experience facing older players on the Twin Boros U19 team

“I bring them up, and I have them playing against college freshman and (high school) seniors,” Namey said.

“That is one of the things I like to do because it gives them a quick reality of how fast the game is and how strong the players are. When they do well, that confidence carries over. They played eight or so games, scored some goals, and held their own. That is what gets the energy going as the older kids see that talent even though they are 14 or 15 years old coming up.”

Namey said that in addition to weekly workouts in June and this month, the team benefited from work at a recent Pitt team camp in which it faced Thomas Jefferson, the Beadling MLS 2009 and 2019 teams, Winchester Thurston, and Our Lady of the Sacred Heart.

“We took a team of 12 players, and five of them were freshmen,” Namey said.

“We’re excited for what we saw there against some really good teams. We’re ready to get the season going.”

Namey said there is a tinge of somberness, however, as Devin Murphy, a senior who was last year’s leading scorer among the underclassmen with eight goals to go along with five assists, suffered a torn ACL and is lost for the season.

“We just found this out (last) week,” Namey said.

“He was going to be our senior captain and leading returning goal scorer. We were looking forward to him having a strong season. We all feel terrible for him.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

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