PK,
I'm sure Coach King is quite competent and doesn't need me defending him. If Bethany is "The Man", and the rest of the team as inexperienced as you have described it, then why wouldn't you start her near the back, keep the score down, stay in the game....and move her up when you have to? If the team was as bad last year as you describe it....Bethany would have been "starving" up top. She would have never seen a ball.
