Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Soccer season began Friday evening for most local boys high school teams when the boys soccer jamboree was held at Greenbrier High School. For four Wolfpack athletes, the season began a few hours earlier.

Seniors Will Dunaway (UNC-Greensboro), Brooks Duff (Furman), Dallas Dickerson (Shorter College) and Bobby Zimmerman (Clayton State) signed letters of intent Friday to play at the college level next fall.

All four teammates wore light-blue dress shirts to the signing ceremony.

"That was unintentional. It just happened," Duff said. "I guess it just shows how connected we are."

Greenbrier's top four seniors have been playing together long before they joined their high school team. Dunaway and Duff play on the same club team in Atlanta. While the paths to college scholarships have been a long time coming, it doesn't mean their high school careers are over.

"Today's just the beginning of our soccer season," Greenbrier boys soccer coach Chip Warren said. "What I like about this is we got it out of the way."

With their college futures solidified, the Greenbrier boys took the field Friday night along with Lakeside, Evans and Aquinas for the boys soccer jamboree.

The girls soccer jamboree took place the following day. Greenbrier's girls appeared in midseason form with a 4-0 win against Harlem, a 7-0 win over Evans and a 1-0 win over Lakeside.

The perfect record in the scrimmages came despite the fact that Greenbrier lost 11 seniors from last season's squad.

"We've got a lot of girls who would scrimmage against those 11 every day in practice," Greenbrier girls coach Alex Heider said. "Our JV girls last year went 10-0 and outscored their opponents 59-0. We all agreed there's room for improvement."

Regular-season play has already begun for Harlem, Lakeside and Evans. The three schools opened up the soccer season with games on Tuesday. Greenbrier's girls (Class AAAA No. 7) and boys (Class AAAA No. 2) won't see their season begin until Feb. 23.

Reach Billy Byler at (706) 863-6165 or billy.byler@augustachronicle.com.