Dayton Soccer Team Getting Stronger

DAYTON - The hard-working Bulldogs soccer team hasn't had a win yet, but they're edging closer with each game and just two weeks ago they tied against Northport in a tough game played in Spokane. "Each week the team is just playing better and better," said head coach DJ Frame. "We just keep picking one aspect of the game, and they're getting it. The coolest thing about this team is they are play­ing absolutely to the end of the game. You can't ask for more than that. They just don't give up." Frame said the team not only plays hard together, but the players "do a great job of supporting each other."

"When you drill down beyond the win-loss of this team, it's pretty cool to get to be a part of it," said Frame, who has been coaching many of these players since mid­dle school. "You can see they're going to be suc­cessful in life." Frame takes the weight of the team's rankings on his own back, saying "I just haven't given them the skills yet, but we'll get them there."

In early October the Bulldogs lost to Riverside Christian 1-5, but the next day they played one of the league's tougher teams, St. George, and lost just 0-4. "The cool thing on that one was that our kids put quite a few shots on goal," Frame said. "Hats off to their goal keeper. We were happy with that game. It was close." Last week the Bulldogs played Walla Walla Valley Academy at Dayton to a 2-5 game. A loss for Day­ton again, "but again you could see that in the last half of the game they just rallied and said, 'They're not scoring on us again,'" Frame said. At halftime, the score was 0-5 against Dayton. The Bulldogs worked defense hard and didn't al­low WWVA to score again for the rest of the game. In fact, Dayton managed two goals of their own.

"They just weren't go­ing to allow it anymore," Frame said.

Frame has coached soc­cer at the high school for four years, since Dayton adopted soccer as a new fall sport. He had been coach for Dayton junior high kids in a recreational league in Walla Walla. "Once they got older too old to play for that league, they asked if we could play for high school," Frame said. "I told them sure, let's go figure it out. Their options were to quit and go do cross country or play football, but that's what they wanted to play. Soccer."

Members of the Dayton soccer team don't play lot of other sports, he said, but they do tend to be heavily involved in youth govern­ment and academics. "It's kinda their place, and it's cool for them to have it," he said. "That's the kind of stuff that keeps me excited about being a part of it. They're a neat group of kids." The Bulldogs got one more shot at WWVA Tuesday afternoon, and Frame was impressed with how his team rose to the challenge.

"The kids played their heart out," he said. "They're getting there."

By halftime the score was 2-1 with Dayton lead­ing. "Halftime was a lot of fun," Frame said. "They were pretty excited. They knew they were playing well, getting better."

Dayton still lost the game 5-3, but Friday night they play St. George, and Frame is hopeful that his team may just start to turn things around.