DeForest girls' soccer finding its stride

The early portion of the 2026 high school soccer season has featured both challenges and progress for the DeForest Norskies girls’ soccer team. That was to be expected, of course, after the team lost 10 seniors from last year’s squad.

However, recent results on The Pitch suggest one thing: the youthful Norskies are starting to click.

On Tuesday, April 21, the Norskies improved to 4-2-1 overall on the season, thanks to a shutout 4-0 victory over Beaver Dam at DMB Community Bank Stadium.

For DeForest, it’s been scoring by committee, receiving significant offensive contributions from a variety of athletes, starting with M/F Ania Jean.

DeForest freshman Ania Jean leads the Norskies in goals scored with three alongside sophomore Olivia Osborne.

Jean, only a freshman, has already eclipsed three goals scored on the season.

And Jean isn’t the only Norski to score three goals this season, either.

Enter sophomore D/M Olivia Osborne, who has reached that same mark, scoring three goals.

“It’s nice to see that these young girls can come in and contribute, show their athleticism and that they can fit right in and play at the varsity level,” DeForest head coach Josh Howard said. “Those couple of freshmen have stepped up huge and have played big roles in these games that we’ve had.”

In addition to Osborne and Jean, Howard also likes the contributions he is seeing from sophomore defender Alyssa Annen, one who has provided a significant boost in the Norskies’ backline, in addition to freshman F/M Allison Rusch, among others.

While the Norskies have reaped the benefits of “scoring by committee” so far this season, perhaps a bigger storyline early on has been their ability to respond to adversity.

After DeForest’s 1-0 season-opening victory over Sun Prairie East, DeForest tied with Monona Grove 1-1 and fell to state-ranked Verona, 3-0.

However, the Norskies responded from that stretch, stringing together back-to-back road victories over Sun Prairie West and Madison Memorial, winning each game by scores of 2-0.

In spite of a 4-1 loss to Watertown on Saturday, April 18, DeForest quickly erased that game from its memory, delivering arguably its most complete performance of the season with the four-goal victory over Beaver Dam on Tuesday evening.

For Coach Howard, it hasn’t required any drastic changes to get the team back on track once adversity hit.

“It’s just talking through what didn’t work well in those games and what we need to continue to do, the things we need to tweak a little bit,” Howard said. “My message to the girls has been the same since day one: We take one day, one game at a time.”

As DeForest continues to climb onward in the 2026 season, the upcoming schedule will only get tougher — and exactly that’s by design.

This weekend, the Norskies will head to UW-La Crosse to play in a two-game invitational on Friday, April 24, against Holmen and Saturday, April 25, against Onalaska. Holmen is ranked No. 7 in the latest Wisconsin Soccer Coaches Association (WSCA) Division 2 Girls Soccer Poll.

“You always look to try and make sure that you’re testing your program and that you want to play competitive games,” Howard said on the Norskies’ upcoming two-game stretch in La Crosse this weekend.

After its weekend trip to Wisconsin’s Driftless region, DeForest will travel to Watertown on Tuesday, April 28, before returning to the friendly confines of DMB Community Bank Stadium on Friday, May 1, against Westosha Central.

Update for Tuesday (4/28) edition: Over the weekend, DeForest secured back-to-back wins in La Crosse, moving its record to 6-2-1. The Norskies started its perfect weekend with a 1-0 victory over Holmen, before scoring a 2-0 victory over Onalaksa to cap a 2-0 weekend.