Last season, the boy’s soccer team won the state championship, which left them feeling eager to head into a new season. This upcoming year will introduce many new changes to the team but they are feeling ready to get the season started.
The team started out with a record of 2-7 in the month of April. But as the season progressed, their record progressed with them. The team had one of the toughest strength of schedules last year and they will continue to have this strength in their schedule again this year.
Matt Harding’s, head coach, main goal for the season is to transfer all the lessons the boys learned last year and bring those into the upcoming season. The team will be much younger this year, as they graduated ten seniors off the team this past season.
“I think it will be important for the coaching staff, and returning players to transfer all the lessons learned last season to the players experiencing varsity for the first time,” said Harding.
Finn O’Toole, 10, is looking forward to continuing the strength of their schedule once again this season.
“I like the strength of our schedule. We’re still 3A, not quite the biggest division but our whole schedule is 4A and that’s kind of how we got ready for last year’s state tournament,” said O’Toole.
Harding briefly mentioned that he would like to take away the boys mindset from last year and bring that into this year. The team dealt with some adversity in the beginning of their season when the whole roster wasn’t available, but that didn’t stop them from working hard and staying competitive.
“I hope the boys don’t let adversity early in the season color their thinking about what is possible. They should have a clear picture of how much we improved as a team from spring break ‘til the state tournament last year,” said Harding.
Conley Sundblad, 11, would also like to bring the team’s mindset from last season into the upcoming season.
“Even though we didn’t start great last year, we finished strong so I feel like remembering that even if we start slow we can still improve and finish off the season strong,” said Sundblad.
Harding and the coaching staff are feeling excited and ready to see more people step up and play starting positions this season.
“They are motivated now to earn one of those starting roles and play a bigger part in whatever success we have this season,” said Harding. “I’m grateful that so many of our players that are returning know what it’s like to be on the field in big games.”
