KINGSTON — The girls on the Buccaneers’ soccer team are future league first-teamers, in head coach Craig Smith’s opinion. They’re just young. Regardless of age, the athletes return to the turf with more experience, greater mental toughness and confidence. They’re more seasoned, they’re slightly older and have shaken off the first year program jitters. Everyone is more optimistic about the season.

“Last year we got knocked around and that isn’t going to happen this year,” Smith said. “We are definitely retaining the bulk of our team and most of the other teams graduated seniors who were impact players, and we are one of the fastest teams in the league.”

Up from last year’s 37 soccer hopefuls, 44 girls turned out for practice on Monday. Seven are returning starters, 16 returning sophomores and 14 are freshman.

Smith said his squad, with all the prep work they did this summer — practicing twice a week for the last few months — is three to four times more advanced than a year ago. When they walked off the field after their season-ending game last year, they were jazzed to keep playing. And now the time has finally arrived.

The aim is to score more goals than are scored against them, defend well and create more scoring opportunities. To be successful in those areas, Smith is gearing practices toward fitness, scrimmaging, keep-away drills and a lot of defense work. The first part of the season will be used to develop the offense.

“We are going to play better possession ball and a faster paced game,” he said. “We’re not going to count on outrunning people, but evolve the possession of play to a shot.”

To lead the way, Smith depends on seniors midfield/forward Meghan Antoni, midfield Ashley Collins, goalie Rae-Ann McConnel and backup goalie Kelsey Lawson. A slew of fresh faces will also be major assets to the team.

“There’s a number of key players,” Smith said. “They’re all future first-teamers in my book.”

Forecasting the competition Smith said cross-town rivals North Kitsap will be the team to beat in Olympic League play. However, he’s cautious of all the teams in the league, which is now absent Peninsula, which was dropped from the league, and Port Townsend, which is now a 1A school.

The Bucs’ season opener is at 3:30 p.m. on Sept. 8 against private 1A school Kings, at Kingston.

Although Kings is a smaller school they were fourth in state last year and third the year before. Smith said playing Kings first is a blessing.

“We’re fortunate to be able to play them. When a weaker team has a practice game against a stronger team it benefits the weaker team in that the goal is to improve,” he said. “It will help us develop and define our defense and our ability to handle pressure. What a great way to start off.”