Despite continued improvement over the last two years, the Ballard Beavers women's soccer team will once again face stiff competition from the King Co. 4A league opponents.

The Ballard Beavers seem to have gotten more competitive in each of the last two years under the leadership of Head Coach Jim Harvey.

The year before Harvey arrived, the Beavers had scored only 16 goals in a 16 game season. They gave up 68 goals.

In 2003, the team improved, scoring 24 goals and only allowing 38. Last year they scored 32 goals and opponents only managed 20.

Ballard finished with a 7-6-3 record and missed the playoffs.

The team lost many 1-0 games and had three tie games. Bothell was undefeated in league action in 2004 and the Beavers battled the Cougars to a tie, going into two overtimes before losing 1-0.

"A lot of those could have been wins," said Harvey.

The 2004 team started out strong with four consecutive wins over non-league schools, Eastside Catholic, Holy Names, West Seattle and a 11-0 win over 4A school, Franklin. Then came a tie against Roosevelt to open the league schedule and then a 6-0 win over Franklin.

Harvey took a different approach to the exhibition games this time around, finding stronger teams to play in the warm-up games.

Last weekend, Ballard traveled to Spokane to play that city's top girls soccer programs.

"We deliberately scheduled tough schools," said Harvey. "We played the two best teams there and the girls got thumped. I don't mind losing, if we are getting prepared for King Co. The total focus this year is on King Co. King Co is a brutal league."

Three key players were lost to graduation: Kimi Stavnshoj, Melissa Winters and Marie Louise Jorgensen.

This year's squad is lead by five seniors, six juniors and six sophomores. Three or four freshman are in the running to make the team.

Ballard's junior varsity team has been playing well in recent years and is solid, and Harvey described the soccer program at Ballard as well balanced.

The varsity team continues to show improvement.

"We are a better team than last year," he said. "Skill level, fitness, better plays, we are better as a team."

Although the roster is full of talent, Harvey said his players don't play together on club teams in the off-season. Because of this, it takes longer to solidify them into a working unit.

Eastside teams on the other hand have many premier soccer programs that feed players to each school. This gives the eastside schools like Inglemoor, Eastlake, Juanita, Lake Washington, Redmond and Skyline a big advantage.

Player development is Harvey's passion as a head coach and players are responding with more playing club soccer.

His assistants include Nicole Ruiz, a former Seattle Pacific University Falcons player who joined the staff last year, and Katie Lim, former all league player for the Falcons.

Brooke Reese is coaching the junior varsity and is a member of the U.S. Women's National B Team.

Goalkeeping coach Aaron Hyde is another plus.

This year's top returnees are Margaret Coke, Leslie Ellingsen and Gillian Huggins.

In order to be successful this fall, the Beavers have to rise to their potential against tough competition.

"The girls can really do something spectacular this year," said Harvey. "They are quite talented."

"There are a lot of good players," said Lim who coaches the defense. "King Co is tough but the girls will be ready for them. We need to defend better as a team, not individually."

Harvey said he hopes the teams ambition will take them a long way this season.

Ballard squares off with Franklin on Sept. 22 at Memorial Stadium and play at Skyline on the road Sept. 27.