Like all elite youth club teams, Bethesda SC’s U16 Girls team has had to deal with the stop-start schedule demands of its ECNL season.

After opening the season with a pair of Ohio games in early December – both losses – Bethesda has since steadied the ship after returning to a more regular schedule at the end of January.

While the schedule has been a challenge, the start hasn’t bothered head coach Dave Nolan, who simply asks his team to continue improving throughout the year.
“I don’t get overly worried about results, I’m more of a process guy,” he told TopDrawerSoccer.com. “I’m far more interested in us getting better, and if we work hard to get better, then the results will take care of themselves.”

Since opening with that pair of losses, Bethesda has put together a record of 2-1-1, with a win over FC Virginia 3-0 at the end of January and a 3-1 win over the Richmond Strikers.

Already, the team has begun to take steps forward and Nolan, also the head women’s coach at Georgetown, has been pleased with the progress.

“I do think we’ve shown some improvement as we’ve gone through these six games and certainly where we are now, and where we were four weeks ago when we started up in early January, it’s night and day,” he said.

Playing an attack-minded game, Bethesda has a pair of strong outside backs in Aliza Wolfe and Madison Krasko who like to get forward and chip in to the offense, while attacking midfielder Eliza Doll pulls the strings sitting behind the forwards.

With the group now moving in the right direction, Nolan is hoping that the team can continue to climb up the standings, both within the divisions and on a national scale.

“I’d like us to get where we are comfortably in the mid-table and above,” he said. “It’s tough because there are so many good teams in the [ECNL] A Flight, it’s challenging.”

Nolan believes that he has a team ready to put in the effort to get accomplish that, and they’ll look to do so this Sunday as the season continues with a match against FC Virginia.

“My group is a hard working group, we encourage them to play good soccer,” he said. “We’re a team, on our day, we can absolutely play with anybody in the country.”

Travis Clark is a staff reporter at TopDrawerSoccer.com. Follow him on or send him an email.