Andalusia will field quite an experienced and strong soccer team in 2013, Bulldogs coach Tim Ramsden said.

After several days of tryouts, the Bulldogs roster was announced during school last week. Andalusia has 26 players on its roster for the coming year. Tryouts were held at the Kiwanis Field.

“We had a tremendous amount of juniors and seniors tryout,” Ramsden said. “In fact, we had 10 seniors who made the team.

“We look, I think, quite strong, and I’m very encouraged about where we may be this year,” he said.

Compared to last year, Andalusia had five to six good players on the field and then had a major drop off in talent, Ramsden said.

This year, the Bulldogs have a solid bill of 13-14 good players on the team who can be starters for each game.

Andalusia’s seniors are Jennifer Botta, Jasmine Botta, Chris Gerhart, Oscar Martinez, Ashton Evans, Corey Bulger, Hiten Patel, Hiren Patel, Will Parker and Christopher Smith. There are two juniors in Zach Parker and Antonio Reves. The sophomores are Ben Jackson, James Albritton, Kevin Rooks, Trey Ossenfort and Elisabeth Christensen. The freshmen are Cameron Phillips, Cole Bush and Shelbee Mathews.

Additionally, there are six middle school students on the team.

“I was thinking I was going to get a little more middle-schoolers than what came out for tryouts,” Ramsden said. “There wasn’t that many seventh and eighth graders.”

The eighth-grader is Adam Peek; and the seventh-graders are Kirykan Wain, Michael Taylor, Lonzell Parks, Kelly Borassa and Ora Nelson.

The main role middle school players will have on the team is to work on their soccer training for development in the long run, Ramsden said.

“What we’re trying to do this year is that we’re going to have a starting 13-14 players who are always going to be set,” he said. “We can always dress out 22 players each game. The rest of the players will get different training and will develop ball skills for the long run and in the future.

“The seventh and eighth graders have already been told that their playing time will be limited,” he said.

Last year, Andalusia won only one match on a small schedule.

This season includes 12 scheduled games with the hope of adding four to six more games, Ramsden said.

In the Class 1A-4A area, Andalusia will compete against Houston Academy, Providence Christian Academy and Charles Henderson. The other matches, as of right now, will be against Carroll-Ozark, Northview and Enterprise.

In order to stay in soccer shape, the Bulldogs will implement a fourth-block workout program, Ramsden said.

“The players in middle school are not doing this work out program,” he said. “Those in high school are doing strength training and conditioning.

“We had a lot of injuries and a lot of issues of not being conditioned for this type of soccer last year,” he said. “They may do some ball work on fourth block, and then come back to practice at night to actually do soccer training.”

First practice is slated for Jan. 21, 2013, and Andalusia’ first game is Feb. 18, at Enterprise.

The Bulldogs’ first home game is set for Feb. 28, against Northview.

“We’re definitely looking forward for as much of the community to come out and watch our practices and games,” Ramsden said.