Losing just one senior from last year, the Quaker Valley girls soccer team already has some experience under its belt.

Rich Wilson has plenty of soccer experience to draw from himself, which is what made him an ideal candidate to take over the QV program.

Wilson was introduced earlier this month as the new head coach of the Quaker Valley program, replacing long-time head coach Kristin Steffey, who resigned from the job after last season.

The new boss found out about the position while applying for another, and decided that he'd like a chance to lead a program with QV's tradition.

"I had interviewed for the Shaler boys varsity job, and at the same time, I got a call from Pat Casper, the Shaler High School girls coach, who alerted me to the opportunity," Wilson recalled.

"One of the things that swayed me to take the job was that I knew the ability of the players was high, that tradition was rooted there, in both the boys and girls programs."

Now, the 39-year old social studies teacher at the Career Connections Charter School in Lawrenceville has a chance to put his own mark on the QV legacy, beginning with this fall's season.

Wilson is a native of Baltimore and played collegiately at Lees-McRae College in North Carolina, a perennial soccer power that now competes as an NCAA Division II school.

After leaving Lees-McRae, Wilson returned to Maryland where he continued his education at Towson University. He would play five years in the Baltimore Kickers organization before he entered youth coaching, which he has done ever since.

"I've coached every age from U-10 to U-18, both boys and girls," Wilson said.

When Wilson first arrived in Pittsburgh, he began coaching with the Pittsburgh Strikers' youth club teams, as well as coaching the Avonworth girls varsity team in 2001 and 2002.

With the Strikers, Wilson has coached and coached against Quaker Valley players in the past, an experience that also factored into his decision to take the QV job, despite living in Oakmont.

"It wasn't something I went into blindly," he said.

"I've coached Quaker Valley and Sewickley Academy players in the past, and I know about their rivalry and the high level of play. I felt like that was something I'd like to be a part of."

But even knowing the success of the past, Wilson wasn't in a rush to make any bold predictions about his team after one meeting at the high school and no full practices. Instead, he wants to see what they can do on the field, and try to put them in a position to succeed from there.

"I've never seen them collectively as a team, and I think it would be an injustice to them to expect something without seeing them," he said.

"All I know is that they have good players with good knowledge of the game, and they're very skilled and very determined to win."