Following a successful 2023 campaign where they finished third in state, the boys soccer team looks to build upon last year’s success going into this season. Head coach Tom Wade said last year’s team was the first to make it to the state semifinals in years.
“Last year was a fantastic season. Super proud of the boys; in our school’s thirty year history, I think they’re the fourth team to go to the Final Four,” Wade said.
Wade said the many seniors who left will be missed, mentioning their years-long development on varsity and the difficulty of saying goodbye.
“They’re missed every year. That’s the hard part of the job. You have these kids with you for several years and you see them grow, you see them learn, you see them develop, and inevitably they graduate and you miss them. Once they’re gone you miss them forever,” Wade said.
Senior James Berry, who was on varsity during their run to the semi-finals last year, said their team chemistry was a key factor in winning pivotal games last season.
“I think we were able to win important games last year by coming together as a team, playing with unity and playing for each other and the community,” Berry said.
Wade is hopeful, despite having lost 18 seniors to graduation, that his current team is capable of carrying over the winning style from last year’s squad. His plan is to bring up the juniors who were previously on JV in order to fill the holes left by the departed seniors.
“A lot of them play club together and they played together all summer, and the idea is to bring them up [to varsity] to take over for the eighteen guys that graduated and just pick up where they left off and try to go back to Soccer Park in the Final Four,” Wade said.
This year’s team has the potential to recreate what they achieved a year ago, Berry said, by doing what worked for last year’s team and building upon their existing sense of unity.
“To replicate that [success], I think we just need to do the same thing [we did] last year as this year. You know, it’s a different team but it’s going good, we’re a tight-knit family,” Berry said.
In order to translate the unity amongst this year’s team into a winning product on the field, Berry said the most important thing is selflessness and playing for the person next to you.
“I think [if] we just don’t play for ourselves, [and] we play for each other and our team, we’ll do great things,” Berry said.
