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Times West Virginian, Fairmont
East Fairmont girls soccer team on cusp of unprecedented 67-game win streak
- Story byTimes West Virginian, Fairmont
- East Fairmont girls soccer team on cusp of unprecedented 67-game win streak
FAIRMONT — When the East Fairmont Bees take the pitch on Wednesday night to face the North Marion Huskies in the Class AAA Region I Final, they will play for the opportunity to return to Beckley to compete for a third consecutive state championship.
But perhaps even more impressive than that is the number of games the program has won in succession to get to this point. With last Thursday's win over Grafton to advance to the Regional Championship game, the Bees secured their 66th-straight victory.
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Their last loss? It came on August 27, 2024, to Charleston Catholic who the Bees would later defeat at the end of that season to capture the A/AA state championship. Now, East Fairmont is just four wins away from finishing back-to-back seasons undefeated and extending their win streak to 70.
"We know the number," head coach Eric Wright said. "I don't know that it's written down, but we definitely know the number. It's something we know about, but it's not our focus."
Of course, the chief objective remains capturing that third straight state title. Come November, nothing less than that prize will be a satisfactory finish to the season. But given the fact that Wright purposefully builds a schedule to make sure the Bees are prepared for postseason play, the team certainly is proud of maintaining such a long winning streak.
"We do take pride in it," Wright said. "We've had some close games, and we've played some good teams. Wheeling Park had us until the 77th minute in a scoreless tie. They're a great team. Wheeling Central is a great team. But when we made the schedule, we weren't thinking about the winning streak. We were just trying to be ready for the state tournament."
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But what does it take to create a dynasty? To build a powerhouse program that is able to win 66 games in a row without a single blemish? Well, it starts with a focus on not overlooking any opponent, and coming to each game locked in on winning.
"I think it's more so just taking it one game at a time," said junior Carly Manchin. "We never look ahead of any game, no matter the other team's schedule or ranking. We just play one team at a time, and we play how we know we can play."
But it also requires the sort of hard work and dedication that you don't often see from a group of high school athletes. Wright is quick to highlight how special his current group of players is when it comes to their approach and their mindset, which he believes makes it easy to foster a winning culture.
"It starts with the kids, it really does," Wright said. "It starts with the players. This junior class came in as freshmen and they were really just motivated from day one. As a coach, it makes it fun, and it makes it easier when you have a group of kids who come every day and want to win so badly, and they understand the importance of practice every day to get us into the position we're in now."
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And by all accounts, practices are a bit different for the Bees than they might be for other programs. Every player on the team is quick to credit their team's success to the difficulty and intensity of practice every day, which the girls on the team believe is tougher than many game environments they play in over the course of the season.
"Our practices are 100% harder than our games. I think that's a big reason why we have such a long winning streak. When we get to games, it's just easy at that point," senior Hailey Hauser said.
"We know if we don't make our practices harder than our games, we're never going to succeed. So our practices truly are one of the hardest things that come with all this," Manchin added.
Of course, team chemistry also plays a role. Many of the upperclassmen have been playing soccer together for most of their careers, and that makes things come a lot easier on the pitch. Hauser, who was in the program the season before the winning streak began, has witnessed the program's transformation, and doesn't think it'd be possible without the bond the athletes have.
"These girls are some of my best friends, we've been playing together forever, and the locker room just really feels like family," Hauser said.
