- June 29, 2024
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Pete Hald has been running the Go To Goal Soccer Camp for 24 years. Photo by Brent Woronoff
FPC soccer players take a break during Go To Goal Soccer Camp on June 20. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Natalie Neal is a two-year returning starter at goalkeeper for the Bulldogs. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Coach Pete Hald watches the action as rising sophomore Ivy Chen makes a move. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Hailey Sammons boots the ball. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Lauralee Macleod (right) marks Eva Sites. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Pete Hald is the only girls soccer coach FPC has ever had. He will begin his 34th season this year. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Kylie McNitt, Nichole Dickinson and recent graduate Kaitlyn Steiner, who signed to play soccer at Warner University. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Maria Araujo, Taci Cook and Skyler Strickland play in a mini-scrimmage. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Taci cook, Paisley Billek, Skyler Strickland and Jocelyn Phillips huddle up at FPC's Go To Goal Soccer Camp. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Coach Pete Hald talks to players at the end of a camp session. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Back row from left, Andreia Fernandes, coach Cat Bradley, Skyler Strickland, Marlee O’Fallon, Taci Cook. Front: Hailey Sammons. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Marlee O’Fallon at FPC's girls soccer camp. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Goalie coach Tanner Paulo and Pete Hald. Photo by Brent Woronoff
FPC girls soccer coach Pete Hald has been running the Go To Goal Soccer Camp at FPC for 24 years. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Pete Hald walks off the field at the end of the camp session. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Eva Sites carries the goal off the field as she chats with Lauralee Macleod at the end of the session. Photo by Brent Woronoff
Originally, Flagler Palm Coast’s Go To Goal Soccer Camp included boys and girls. But as Pete Hald got more involved, he brought more girls into the week-long camp.
Two years after he took the camp over from former Bob Sawyer in 2001, he made it exclusively for girls soccer players.
“Selfishly, I was like, I can have enough players with just girls, so that’s what I did,” Hald said.
Twenty-nine players took part in the camp last week (June 17-21) on FPC’s back field. It was the 24th year that Hald ran the camp. It is by invitation only. Over 40 girls take part in FPC's girls soccer summer weightlifting program, but only the higher-level players are invited to participate in the camp.
“If you played in my program you get to come,” Hald said. “Anybody new has to have a recommendation from a coach or (JV coach Cat Bradley) or I have to observe them playing.”
Hald will be entering his 34th season as the Bulldogs’ girls soccer coach this year. He is the only girls soccer coach the school has ever had, starting the program in the 1991-92 school year, when he was just one year out of college.
Since then, he has won 533 games. His teams have won nine district championships and have played in 25 district title games — including 19 straight from 2003 to 2021. They have also played in five regional championship games.
In 2014, the Bulldogs had their best season, advancing to the final four where they lost to Fort Lauderdale St. Thomas Aquinas 1-0 in sudden-death overtime. St. Thomas went on to win the Class 5A state championship. Early in overtime, FPC’s Josie Davis unleashed a shot that soared just over the goal.
“I don't remember everything in soccer, but I remember this,” Hald said. “The keeper missed the whole ball. It just went over the crossbar by this much. I mean, it was a great shot. It would have ended the game.”
Next season, the Bulldogs will have a sophomore-dominated team with several playing major roles last season as freshmen.
For some of the rising sophomores this was their first Go To Goal camp with its intense skills training.
“It’s five days (in the evenings this year), and we get to do all the skill work, but we’re always playing games,” Hald said. “We're always ending in games. We're playing competitive games, utilizing those skills.”
Former FPC goalie Tanner Paulo, who graduated in 2022, worked with the five goalies in camp.
Everybody’s playing, nobody’s sitting. During the week, the kids will have a thousand touches, easily.”
— PETE HALD, FPC girls soccer coach
“It's a blessing to have him here,” Hald said. “He works real hard and he's really good with them. And we incorporate (the goalies), because you can end any skill development into shooting on the goal, making it fun for them, because nobody wants to dripple through poles all the time and not shoot on the goal. So when we add the goal, we add the keepers, and then of course, we try to play games that use either the 6v6 goal or the big goal. But everybody’s playing, nobody’s sitting. During the week, the kids will have a thousand touches, easily.”
The camp is just one of many summer programs Hald’s players participate in as a team.
They have weight room training on Tuesday and Thursday mornings with free play on a practice field on Thursday mornings following weightlifting. On Wednesday mornings they do a beach workout. And once a week they play as a team in the Royal Palms SC 7v7 high school soccer league.
Hald, who played soccer at the University of Vermont from 1986-90, loves coaching now as much as when he started the program 34 years ago. He said his goal is to remain at FPC through his son Jacob’s high school graduation.
Jacob is entering eighth grade, so that means Flagler County’s longest tenured coach may be guiding FPC’s girls soccer team for at least another five years.
