Continuity has been a major plus for Curtis Engsberg in his first season as Chamblee’s girls’ soccer head coach.

Engsberg was an assistant last season and inherited a team with eight seniors.

“It helped that I was here last year, so these seniors could just flow into this season without having to adjust much,” Engsberg said. “That really helped a lot.”

Engsberg said leadership and urgency have been two of the positives of having so many seniors.

“There is a real sense of, ‘It has to happen now,’” Engsberg said. “There is not next year for a lot of these girls. When half the team is thinking that way, it feeds down.”

Engsberg said there is a core group of about six seniors who have been playing together for most of their soccer lives.

“There is a chemistry there that you can’t coach,” he said. “They know exactly how each other will respond to different things which has helped me. That takes a lot of the tension off.”

Chamblee (13-2, 10-1 Region 6AAAA) snagged the second spot out of the region behind Marist for the second straight season. The team will play host to North Paulding in the first round of the postseason May 2.

“When we met before the season, we said we wanted to have a home playoff game again,” Engsberg said. “But we said this year we wanted to win the first round. Last year we lost to Heritage on penalties.”

Engsberg said that sour taste of losing in penalty kicks is something this group does not want to experience again.

Engsberg said a 2-1 win over Lakeside this season gave the team the No. 2 seed. He said the game was a reverse of the playoff loss from last season.

“We didn’t play that well, but we just wanted it real bad,” he said. “We didn’t play in sync and our touch was a little off. Nothing was working, but we just kept fighting and held on before winning in penalties.”

Engsberg said the team has adapted well to injuries or sickness that occurred during the season. He said his team has fought through adversity and is now ready to make a deep playoff run.