Wheeling Central Prepares For Title Defense With Still-Growing Squad
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WHEELING -- The Wheeling Central Maroon Knights girls soccer squad enters their 2026 fall season as the defending Class AA/A champions after nabbing their first SSAC title in school history via a 3-1 win over Lincoln last November.
The triumph was a climactic finale for the Knights, who graduated a crop of very important seniors that helped lead the way through their season.
But for other Central players-- perhaps a lot more than on a typical team-- last November's trophy was not an end of a journey, but more like liftoff.
While Wheeling Central had more than a few seniors to thank for their part in a state championship season, players like Mariah Ratcliffe, Gianna Konkle, Seneca Heller, Addie Payton among others, an impressive amount of their talent still had years yet to come in the maroon and white.
Elah Konkle, a freshman last season, was named the W.Va. Class AA/A Midfielder of the Year and State Tournament MVP. Konkle, Rylee Wright, Loni Kusic and Bella Fitzsimmons were named Class AA/A All-State-- Wright and Kusic were sophomores, Fitzsimmons a junior-- and entering 2026, the youthful Knights have the benefit of more growth and more experience under their belts.
"Our girls are obviously very talented, and them playing when they were younger the past few seasons, that definitely helps because we’re at an advantage now because they’re older and they’re experienced," Addi Hanson, a senior on this year's team, said before a Wednesday practice. "They’ve had experience in the tough games and they can use that in the upcoming season."
"We’re really excited, coming off a state championship win last year," Bella Fitzsimmons said. "We’ve had some seniors that left last year, some spots to fill, but we’ve been working hard as a team and we’re ready to start with our scrimmage next week. Our team morale is really high right now, so we’re just excited to get started."
Wheeling Central will scrimmage at Brooke High School this weekend, and take on Wheeling Park in a scrimmage on August 18. Their first game is on August 22 against Steubenville Big Red.
"We’re really excited about these scrimmages coming up to get a good idea of how much they’ve progressed through the offseason," head coach Bill Konkle said. "I think in practices they’re doing pretty good with their ball control, their attacking and things like that, their possession. We’re really looking forward to the scrimmages to kind of see where we are early here."
It's a rare situation the Maroon find themselves in with a young team that nonetheless possesses quite a bit of continuity.
Patrolling the midfield for Central will be a ton of returning talent in Loni Kusic, Rilee Wright and Elah Konkle. Elizabeth Steele is a returning player to watch out for as well.
"Elizabeth Steele, she’s also going to be a junior and is a huge part of our team," Bill Konkle said. "She scores a lot of goals, gets a lot of assists. She’s more on the wing. So having them back as our nucleus, our players that have been controlling the middle and controlling the attack last year and the year before, that's great to have."
Junior Berklee Heller will play as a forward, filling a role that Coach Konkle says was filled by her sister Seneca last season.
"We're excited to see what she can do," Konkle said.
Sophomores Maddie Steele and Meredith Komorowski will ply their talents to the defense, where seniors Addi Hanson and Kendall Schmitt should also reside.
Hanson and Schmitt, as well as Bella Fitzsimmons, who reprises her role in-goal for Wheeling Central as a four-year starter, are the three captains on this year's troupe.
"We’re looking for them not only to be role players on the field, but also have that senior leadership," Konkle said. "Guide the behaviors, the attitudes, the commitment level, because they’ve been here for four years and they'll try to pass that down to the freshmen and the sophomores that are coming into the program to instill those values that we want to instill here at Wheeling Central in the soccer program."
"We’re all obviously very excited for this because we’ve worked very hard to get to the point where we are today," Schmitt said of her and her fellow captains. "We’re all just trying to act as leaders, help lead the team to victories during the season-- we’re just trying to get to our team goal, which is, in the end, winning states again."
Look for seniors Madigan Smith and Kaila Blatt and junior Aylin Yoho to also be contributors throughout the season. And, as if Wheeling Central didn't have enough underclassmen lighting up the field, Coach Konkle said that incoming freshman Addie Jackson has shown good things throughout the summer.
"Really excited about the upcoming season," Konkle said. "We lost some great seniors last year, but we have girls waiting to get into this season so that they can make their mark on the field. Every year it’s a new team, so we’re excited to see what we can do."