Dr. Valentine Walker is a science teacher and  soccer coach at Normal West.

Walker has been teaching at West for 21 years,  and has been at West since 2005.

Specifically, Walker has been coaching the West girls’ soccer team for 18 years.

The girls began training in the summer to help prepare them for the season.

“The season starts in the summer; we do a lot of camps, and scrimmages,” Walker stated.

There are a total of 24 girls on the varsity soccer team, where the top 22 players play varsity and two girls are considered “swing” players who bounce between varsity and junior varsity playing time.

There are four captains on the girls varsity team this year: Addyson Hammond, Ella Fogel, Kendall Gonzalez, and Kinley Cornejo.

“We were a young team. We start with six or seven freshmen and sophomores,” Walker noted.

Especially because of this youth, Coach Walker believes it is important to build relationships with the players.

Mackenzie Nichols, a senior on the girls varsity team, explained the relationship between the players: “We all have our own friend groups, but we work well together as a team,” Nichols added.

So far, the girls are sitting at a 3-3-1 record this season, and Walker notes that the biggest challenge they’ve had is the inexperience of many of their players.

“There’s certain things that you only learn by playing the games. There’s a lot of learning, we’re watching a little film. We’re talking about how to do it better next time,” Walker stated.

With that, Walker knows that the girls all share a common goal.

“[Our goal is to ultimately] develop and perhaps be a challenge at the end at regionals,” Walker added.

The team this season will strive to develop and learn from their past experiences to help them dominate the rest of the 2026 season.

Next up for the Wildcats is to travel to Champaign Central tonight (April 9). Kickoff is at 4:30 p.m.