Boys soccer at 2-7

The boy’s varsity soccer team currently holds a 2-7 record for the 2008 season.  They started out strong, winning both of their pre-season scrimmages, but did not carry out the winning streak during the actual season.  The team’s two non-scrimmage wins, against Washington-Lee and, most recently, Hayfield, have kept the team optimistic despite the seven losses.

“It’s been going downhill,” said junior goal tender Zack Manthos, “but we’ve been practicing really hard and can pull it together.”

To “pull it together” the team will need to tighten up defensively, be more aggressive and opportunistic on offense and work more cooperatively as an entire team.  Defense has been described by players as lacking, as six goals were scored against the team in the game against Yorktown and five in the game against Lake Braddock.

“Our defense has some holes and that leaves it all up to us goal tenders,” says Manthos.  

The offense also is looking to make improvements.  Many players believe that players on offense have not taken enough opportunities for shots and have not followed through on every opportunity to score.

“We don’t open up enough chances on offense for goals,” said junior Parker Koppelman, “and that’s unfortunate because you can’t get points if you’re not taking shots.”

Offensive players will need to be more aggressive and cooperative to take these shots.

“If we got more shots we’d get more goals,” said senior Jose Valladares.  

As a varsity mid-fielder he believes he will need to “support offense more, and pass more to get the ball up and when we have a shot we just need to take it.”

One way for the team to improve offense is to first improve the team’s defense.  “Tightening up the defense would make it so the offense wouldn’t have to come back so much and could take more shots,” said Manthos.  

“Our coach is putting different people in different positions to get the best possible team.  Coach is figuring out who fits best where,” said Koppelman.  He believes that these changes along side hard work at practice are noticeably improving the team’s defense.

“We’ve been working a lot on defense.  We’ve given up a lot of goals but I think we’re tightening it up,” Koppelman said. The team is continuing to learn how to work together as a whole to improve.

“We have a younger team so the most important thing is to get to know each other.  It helps us to work together better,” said Koppelman, “We have good team chemistry and work well together at practice.”

The boy’s varsity soccer team clearly recognizes its problems, and will need to follow through on making the necessary improvements in the area of offense, defense and teamwork if they hope to succeed in the coming district tournament in mid-May.