For years, Templeton Secondary’s senior girls had the results of a top-tier soccer team.

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They just didn’t look like one.

The east Vancouver team, built from scratch by Grade 8 girls recruiting classmates, grew into one of the school’s most standout sports teams. It climbed the Vancouver Secondary Schools Athletic Association ranks, finishing the 2025 season undefeated and earning Templeton its first soccer finals appearance in nearly 40 years.

But even as the Titans stacked up wins, the team lacked something basic: proper jerseys.

The co-captains, Grade 12 students Freya Richter and Annabella King, remember stepping onto last year’s championship pitch in kit borrowed from the school’s volleyball team.

“They had a volleyball on the shirt’s crest,” said Richter, a winger now in her fifth season with the team. “They were tight like spandex and not meant for playing soccer.”

From the beginning, the co-captains said they had been asking the school’s athletic department for soccer jerseys — something many of their opponents from other schools in the district had.

“It was embarrassing for us because when we played other teams, some had matching jerseys, shorts and even socks. We had mean comments made to us about our kits,” said King, who plays midfield.

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Their alternatives weren’t much better: decades-old bright yellow jerseys from the boys team or mismatched maroon soccer kits with peeling and duplicate numbers, still not enough to outfit their 17-player roster.

King said she only realized how outdated some of the gear was when she showed her mother, a Templeton soccer player between 1997 and 2001, photos of the boys team.

“She was like, ‘Oh my god, those are the yellow jerseys I wore when I was younger.’”

Even without proper team gear, the Titans dominated at the Argyle Girls Soccer tournament last season, scoring nine goals without conceding a single one.

With no guarantee of jerseys for the 2026 season, the girls took matters into their own hands.

Players launched a grassroots fundraising push between May and June last year, turning school afternoons into “Freezie Fridays” by selling frozen treats on Templeton’s back field. They also partnered with local coffee roaster Moja, selling bags of beans to neighbours and local women’s teams, with students taking a small cut from each sale.

The Titans raised just over $2,000, enough to buy team jerseys.

“I didn’t care about how (the jerseys) were going to look,” said King. “I just wanted them to be able to do the job.”

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In a statement, the Vancouver school district said school athletic budgets are set at the individual school level, with each secondary school deciding how to allocate its budget. It means that funding for uniforms and equipment can vary widely among schools. Many programs are supported through a mix of sources, including facility rentals, school merchandise sales, parent advisory committee contributions and fundraising.

“Schools may choose to fundraise to upgrade equipment or uniforms. While most teams charge a uniform deposit for a uniform, some teams choose to not take the school-supplied uniform in order to personalize and keep them at season’s end. In those cases, students have to fundraise and/or pay for them.”

The push for the uniforms followed years of building Titans from the ground up, said Anthony Hempell, who has coached the team since 2022, when his daughter Lilly was a player. This season, Templeton English teacher Taylor McVay joined as co-coach.

“With high school soccer, there’s a lot less structure, so students really have to take ownership to make a team happen,” Hempell explained.

Before the Titans, Templeton hadn’t fielded a senior girls soccer team since 2009.

“It was crazy to me that we didn’t have a girls team,” he added, pointing to the school’s deep roots in the sport, including alumni like former Vancouver Whitecaps defender Bob Lenarduzzi and Domenic Mobilio, a striker for the Vancouver 86ers, the club that became the Whitecaps.

While the Titans’ early seasons held more losses, the team improved steadily the more time they had together on and off the field.

“In the beginning, we didn’t have any expectations of winning anything,” Richter recalled. “But as the seasons have gone by, we’ve all become close friends and shifted into a more competitive mindset. We now believe we’re good enough to win games.”

Last season, the co-captains worked to build a following for the senior girls team, plastering promotional posters around the school to draw support.

“We started to have fans,” Richter said. “People would come up to us in the hallway and ask about the date of our next game, or congratulate us for winning. It was a level of school spirit we had never seen at Templeton before.”

During their 2025 championship match, more than 100 spectators packed the sidelines for the Titans’ final game on home turf.

“I remember this moment on the field when I looked back, and the entire crowd was cheering,” recalled King.

Despite their 3-1 loss to Eric Hamber Secondary, the Titans were promoted to the top tier of high school competition, where soccer squads compete for a provincial title.

On Thursday, the team took to their home pitch in their new maroon uniforms.

“The jerseys have helped with our confidence, and we feel proud wearing them because they came from our hard work,” said Richter.

Facing much stiffer competition this year, the Titans played their second game of the season Thursday, losing 3-0 to Kitsilano Secondary. But players say it hasn’t shaken their confidence.

“At the end of the day, we play for our school because we want to play with our friends,” Richter added.

The new jerseys have also been used by Templeton’s up-and-coming junior girls soccer team.

Krystal Ripolo, King’s mother and a former Templeton soccer player, remembers when the whole community would turn out for the girls’ games in 2001 and hopes the legacy of the current senior team will carry on after they graduate.

“They heard ‘no’ a lot — about jerseys, about not having enough players and needing to recruit just to field a team,” said Ripolo. “They were often pushed aside and told what they had to wear, but they kept coming together and finding solutions.”

sgrochowski@postmedia.com