The Suffolk Christian Academy girls’ soccer team had players filling four of the six spots on the 2015 All-Hampton Roads Athletic Conference team, including freshman left center defender Eva Waddell, who was named HRAC girls’ soccer Player of the Year.

“I’m happy for all of them,” Lady Knights coach Jeremy Effler said, referring also to sophomore right center defender Cassidy Dennys, sophomore goalkeeper Zoie Howell and sophomore striker Victoria Twisdale.

They all contributed to the team’s 7-2-2 run, which culminated in winning the HRAC tournament championship.

Regarding Waddell, “especially to be so young, she’s a phenomenal player,” Effler said. “After every game, I usually had a coach come up and comment on her saves and things like that.”

Waddell said she didn’t see the honor coming.

“I was extremely surprised,” she said. “I just really wanted to thank my Lord Jesus Christ, who gave me the ability to play soccer.”

Waddell also thanked her family for taking her to games and practices, Effler for helping shape her as a player and for helping her with her walk as a Christian, and she also thanked her fellow Lady Knights.

“I definitely would not be the player I am without my teammates,” she said.

She had 21 steals this season and also had one goal. Effler noted he did not move her up to forward very often, though.

“She can play anywhere on the field,” he said. “She’s a good ball handler and actually a very accurate striker, but she was more of a benefit on the back line to us.”

Cassidy Dennys played right beside Waddell on the defensive line.

“They are two of the fastest girls on our team,” Effler said. When opposing strikers came up against them, “they couldn’t out-run them.”

Both Waddell and Dennys are also extremely aggressive, the coach said.

“Typically the people who get glory and get acknowledged as all-around players are strikers, and so for both of those girls, on a defensive note, to win Player of the Year and all-conference, that should just tell you how much they stuck out,” he said.

He praised Dennys for her ability to switch positions quickly if the need arose and noted she has a big kick.

“She was also the captain of the (junior varsity) team,” Effler said.

She scored for the JV team, and on varsity, she had two assists and 21 steals.

Zoie Howell was another key element of Suffolk Christian’s defense, contributing saves that were, at times, spectacular.

“It looks like what they would be doing in college,” Effler said, adding that she is very aggressive on the ball. “Many times I thought the ball was in the goal, I don’t know how she would get there, but she knocked it out.”

In 11 games played, Howell recorded 133 saves.

She also has greater versatility than some goalies have, sometimes taking opposing strikers off guard.

“She can use her feet, as well, and has skill, and a lot of times they would underestimate that and come running in, expecting her to dive on the ball, and she can take the ball with her feet, as well as her hands, and dribble around them and pass the ball off,” Effler said.

He also praised her ability to direct and lead the defensive line.

Victoria Twisdale made the cut of only six all-conference players selected this year after making the all-conference second team last season.

She led the Lady Knights with eight goals through 11 games, she had 37 shots, one assist and seven steals.

“I could put her out as a winger, and she was one of the few girls that could just get the ball across the front of the goal perfectly, and she was an excellent striker for our team,” Effler said.

“Even if she wasn’t the goal-scorer, she was setting us up, knows how to place the ball.”