Piper Mangold has experienced the whole rollercoaster ride, starting with her freshman year.
The South Philadelphia High School girls soccer team didn’t have the ideal season three years ago. There were a lot of new faces and wins were scarce.
The team ended up getting demoted to the C Division in the Public League.
“It’s actually a crazy growth story because my freshman year, we started in the B division and lost all our games,” said Mangold, a senior at Creative and Performing Arts, which is part of a co-op with Southern. “There were a lot of language barriers. Our team is from a lot of different schools so it was all about finding a community.”
Five schools to be exact.
Southern receives players from CAPA, Girard Academic Music Program, Mastery Charter and Franklin Learning Center. And somehow they found cohesiveness in 2024 as the team took an undefeated record into the PPL playoffs before its season finally ended.
Last year was more of the same as the Rams bumped back up to the B Division and went 9-3 and once again qualified for the playoffs.
After another promotion, Southern is now enjoying the look from above as a member of the PPL’s top division. Although the Rams are paying their dues in the much-tougher A Division and had a 1-5-1 record through Oct. 1, there’s a sense of pride competing against the very best Public League teams in the city.
“We’re getting our footing in this division,” Mangold said. “It’s different. But I’m excited for the team and I’m excited for their next season even though I won’t be here. I just want to set them up for the best time possible next year, and the year after that and the year after that.”
Mangold enjoys seeing a good story come to fruition. The Center City resident enjoys creative writing at her school and manages and organizes a literary magazine as part of a capstone project.
“We just had our first issue,” Mangold said. “It’s a compilation of poetry, fiction and nonfiction from the entire school. We advertise and make sure all student work is represented in the literary magazine.”
It’s a lot like the way her team came together on the soccer field despite coming from different areas of the city and sometimes not even speaking the same language. Now they are one big happy family.
“I’m so proud of this team,” Mangold said. “It’s not even the wins. It’s just the community and having the pizza party after the school year. It’s different now. I want to text my teammates after practice and I want to hang out with them. The sense of community has grown so much.”
Mangold scored the Rams’ lone goal in a 5-1 loss to Philadelphia Academy Charter School on Oct. 1 on a well-placed penalty kick. The future communications major has become valuable at providing offense while also providing a calming voice on the field. You could say she’s at the top of her game.
“We’re still having a lot of fun out there,” she said. “The mood isn’t dwindling even though we’re not getting as many wins as we would like to have. It’s been a really fun year.” ••
