A year ago, the Bryan County girls soccer team was the surprise team in the Region 3A-DII race. This year has been a bit of a different story as the Redskins have gone from being the hunter to the huntee.

Last year Coach Kristen Barnhill’s team set a school record with 10 wins and tied Metter for first-place, hosted a home playoff game for the first time ever and won its first ever state playoff game.

This year has ben more of a struggle, especially offensively, as reflected in a 4-7 record, 3-5 in region play after dropping a 4-1 decision to Portal on Tuesday night. The goal against the Panthers was Bryan County’s first in four games.

Despite those struggles the Redskins are in good shape to make the Class A-DII playoffs for a school record third straight year. A win in one of their remaining two region games would seal the deal. Bryan County plays at Metter on Friday and after spring break hosts McIntosh County Academy on April 8.

While Barnhill likes her team’s playoff chances she acknowledged, there are no guarantees.

“With graduation from last year we had to reshuffle the lineup,” Barnhill said. “Last year we had Liz Harvey in the field (she led the team in scoring). This year she’s in goal so we have struggled a little bit in getting goals.

“Kolbie (English) and Haley (Thomas) have been scoring. But once we got into region play, we’re playing some of the top teams in the state in our classification.”

In the latest soccer rankings compiled by Score Atlanta Portal is ranked No. 3 in the state, Screven County is No. 8 and Claxton is just outside the top 10. The Redskins lost twice to Portal (5-1, 4-1), twice to Screven (2-0, 2-0) and split with Claxton, winning 7-6 and losing 2-0.

There is also a 1-0 loss to Woodville-Tompkins which is ranked No. 10 in Class A-Di.

Last year the Redskins surprised a lot of teams. They were no longer an automatic win. This year those teams are looking for a measure of revenge.

“Those teams want payback from last year,” Barnhill said. “We also don’t have a lot of depth this year so the kids that start pretty much play the whole game. If somebody gets tired or we have to take someone out we can’t maintain like we did last year.

“That’s part of the growing pains with a lot of the kids. But they’re working hard and getting after it. The effort is there and I’m fine with that..”

Thomas, a kicker on the boys football team and quarterback in flag football, is leading the team in scoring with eight goals and junior Kolbie English is right there with her but after that the offensive threats drop off.

Thomas and Reese Raeburn are team captains and they head up a senior group that includes Shae Coursey, who also plays tennis, Lauren Sanderson, Akeisha Jenkins, Baleigh Thurston and Emily Connell.

Heading up the junior group is Harvey, English, Addie Longino and Camryn Parker who also started last year.

“Haley and Reese are dogs,” Barnhill said. “They’re bulldogs. They’re going to go out there and give it everything they’ve got. They’re positive. They’re leading and the team is staying positive because of them and they’re working hard because of them.”

With Harvey getting a late start due to basketball freshman Tatiana Rivera started the season in goal but that did not work out as well as Barnhill had hoped.

“Tatiana is solid, she’s not real big but she’s aggressive and she’s learning but she doesn’t have the soccer knowledge yet that Liz does,” Barnhill said. “The first game Liz was back we put her in the field and decided we would try and outscore Claxton.”

The Redskins did just that, winning a 7-6 game that left Barnhill shaking her head.

“I’ve never been part of a game with that high of a score,” Barnhill said. “It was crazy.”

Harvey had four goals and two assists including the game winner with 27 seconds left while Thomas had two goals and two assists. English had the other goal.

After losing to Screven with Harvey in goal the Redskins were tied with Portal, 0-0, when Barnhill put Harvey in the field. The Panthers took advantage of Rivera’s inexperience in pulling out a 5-1 win.

“It was like a ‘go for it’ type of thing and we put Liz on the field,” Barnhill said. “That game kind of showed up what we had to do as a team this year which was to focus on not goals but to see if we could go the distance with some of these teams.

“I know we’re frustrated when compared to how the season went last year but this is going to prepare us for the playoffs.”