Dave Ronald tells his soccer team to keep its eye on the big picture.

So while his Mt. Blue girls are only 2-9 this season, Ronald is trying to focus his Cougars attention on a broader view.

“First half of last year – brutal,” he said. “The second half was far better. This year is better than last. So we’ve got to keep improving, give 110 percent every game and look yourself in the mirror and say I did all I could.'”

Mt. Blue went 3-11 last year after a very rocky start. They were much improved later in the season. After losing 11 seniors from that squad, the Cougars have been a much more competitive club this season. The victories have come begrudgingly slow, but the Cougars have been in nearly every game.

“With the exception of two games now, they’ve been 2-0 or 2-1,” said Ronald. “There’s been a lot of close games.”

The Cougars are still very young. The roster has just five seniors. Much of the lineup is comprised of juniors and sophomores. They’ll lose captains Keelin Cyr, Amy Mansir and Kayla Tuttle along with seniors Carlah Robbins and Angie Richards, but there’s some promising talent returning. Goaltender Caitlin Scott along with Tess Perry, Sandy Moloney, Kim Wasco, Amanda Laney, Bonnie Silkman and Abby Martin are all underclassmen currently starting.

The future looks bright at the lower levels as well. There may be more depth and opportunity to develop interest in the sport at the younger levels.

“We have some girls coming through now that were playing on travel teams,” said Ronald. “We didn’t have that before. The feeder program is no longer going to just be the rec department. It’s going to be travel teams and school teams. As they come through, it’s going to pay off.”

The record hasn’t been indicative of the progress the team has made but other signs point to their success.

“From last year to this year, when you look at the two scorebooks, it’s been night and day,” said Ronald. “They’ve made a vast improvement.”

Things to do

The Oxford Hills girls know whether they’ve been successful, not by the scoreboard but by their to-do list. The Vikings have a lengthy list of priorities to focus on each game. Examples including: showing intensity like each match was the state final, playing every opponent as though it were best squad in the league, aim to win 75 percent of the balls in the air and win the 50-50 battles.

“They’re not so much outcome related as much as they’re process oriented,” said Oxford Hills coach Kyle Morey. “It’s basically about how they approach the game.”

The Vikings (7-3-1) were ranked fifth in the latest Eastern A standings but have lost close games to Brunswick (1-0), Lewiston (2-0) and Edward Little (2-1).

“The first three games we checked every single item off,” said Morey. “Since then there’s always little holes in it. They’ve still been playing well since then, but if they want to be at the top of this league, they need to do that.”

The Vikings returned nine starters from last season’s club that went 6-7-2 and lost in the prelims. Only Darcy Herrick, Steph Piirainen, Annie Foster, Lauren Austin and Abby Chouinard are seniors. Oxford Hills managed to topple the defending state champs from Mt. Ararat earlier in the year but haven’t had the same success against the top squads since.

“I think that hurt us,” said Morey. “Since then, we haven’t played with the same intensity.”