Even though his team began the season with an impressive win and he logged his first career victory as a Roughie head coach, girls’ head soccer coach Derek Saltzgiver was cautiously optimistic.

Despite the restructured situation, hopes are high this season with a pair of consecutive district appearances as motivation.

Yet, it is a new season.

“I told them not to go on their past season successes,” said Saltzgiver. “We need to temper expectations and keep everything in its proper perspective.

“But I feel like they have taken a little bit of step.”

The Roughies can take a moment to celebrate their opening-game, 4-2 victory over Bangor Monday.

It was the first action since they began workouts a few months ago, as they didn’t have any scrimmages.

“It cleared a lot of things up for me,” added Saltzgiver about his team’s performance. “We will be a fluid team as we have the players to play different positions. I can see some girls at positions, but we will have the opportunity to move some people around.

“We have a good number of younger players who have looked good, and our seniors will get their time.”

Sophomore Kaylee Weidaw registered two goals and junior Taylor Hicks and freshman Kelsea Warren each tallied a goal.

“Three of our four goals were scored by underclassmen, and that’s exciting,” stated Saltzgiver. “I have been using a different formation than they used in the past. They are adjusting to it well.”

Saltzgiver will get a good reading on this club by the weekend with games against Palmerton Wednesday and Moravian Academy Friday.

“We’ll be looking at two pretty good teams,” he said. “We will find out more about ourselves. But we are just happy to play. You never know what is going to happen. We’ll go game-by-game.”

BOYS

The boys fell to Bangor on the road 3-2 on Monday afternoon.

The Slaters got on the board first with a goal from Derek Filipkowski who was assisted by Gabe Lawler.

The two players would connect again for Bangor’s second goal, this time it was Lawler finding the back of the net on an assist from Filipkowski.

Catty would cut the lead to 2-1 as Damian DiPaolo scored. DiPaolo would score again to tie the game at 2-2 before halftime.

Bangor would get the game-winner in the second half as Lawler struck again for his second goal of the game, this time assisted by Markus Kiernan.

Bangor outshot Catty 13-8 as the Slater’s Justin Pascoe stopped six and Catty’s Hunter Miller saved 10.