A wise old Jedi once said, \u201dDo, or do not. There is no try.\u201d It\u2019s unclear whether Bemidji girls\u2019 soccer senior Brynn Klaers has ever seen Star Wars, or even knows who Yoda is, but she coined a similar phrase: \u201cWe don\u2019t hope. We do.\u201d And it has epitomized the Lumberjacks\u2019 attitudes this preseason.<\/p>\n
The Jacks finished 2025 with an 11-6-1 record and made it to the Section 8AAA semifinals before falling in a tight 1-0 battle with Buffalo. But instead of hoping they can get to the title game this year, the girls are putting in the work to realize their goal.<\/p>\n
However, there are many new faces in key roles, including Klaers, who replaces longtime goalkeeper Clara Bieber.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned a lot from Clara,\u201d said Klaers. \u201cThe way she led the team, the way she uplifted everybody on the team. But I\u2019m really excited for it to be my time, for me to step into the net and kind of take over that role. I\u2019ve put a lot of work in in the offseason, but that confidence also comes inversely from the girls in front of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continued, \u201cThose girls, I know have my back and that they\u2019re going to do everything they can to stay in front of me, help me out. And so it\u2019s my job to do the same and give them that same confidence that they have in me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her teammates feel the same way.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving Brynn in the back, she\u2019s always supporting us and she\u2019s always like telling us, \u2018OK, girls, we need to go here, girls, we need to go here,’\u201d said senior captain Taylor Merschman. \u201cAnd we\u2019re just really supportive of her because we know that everyone\u2019s going to make mistakes on the field. So if she makes a mistake, that\u2019s on us [because we let the ball get back there]. We\u2019re just making sure that we\u2019re uplifting and building her up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even after graduating 10 seniors, the Jacks have kept the familial aspect that led to success on the pitch last season and are utilizing it in 2026 to create their own persona\u2014one that showed itself in yesterday\u2019s preseason scrimmage.<\/p>\n
\u201cHalfway through the game, it started raining,\u201d said senior captain Kylie Bellino. \u201cI think that really helped our team because it just gave us this mindset of, \u2018We\u2019re pushing through it.\u2019 I think that\u2019s something our team is really good at and we showed that yesterday, and I\u2019m excited to show that tomorrow [in the season opener].<\/p>\n
\u201cThe identity of this year\u2019s squad is that we have a lot of depth as we\u2019re playing\u201d she added. \u201cKeepers, defense, mids, forwards all over the field, different skill abilities, which really helps us build up as a team. There\u2019s not just one player that\u2019s good, but we are as a whole. But also our community; we push each other, we help grow each grow, and I really appreciate that about our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team has so much energy and we\u2019re literally just like a family,\u201d Merschman explained. \u201cSo when we mess up, we\u2019re always there encouraging each other. \u2018We\u2019re going to do better next time. C\u2019mon, just forget about it. We got it.\u2019 And then on the bench, it\u2019s been really, really positive, good energy all the time. And in terms of the competition, our team is very competitive. So, just excited to see how that plays out the rest of the season.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lumberjacks joined a new conference in the offseason, the Central Lakes Conference, and will open their season on Thursday, Aug. 27 with new conference foe Rocori. Kick-off is set for 3 p.m. at the Bemidji Middle School soccer field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wise old Jedi once said, \u201dDo, or do not. There is no try.\u201d It\u2019s unclear whether Bemidji…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-872968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}