Varsity:
Every year OHS soccer proves to be a team built on mental integrity as well as the players ability to pick themselves up and keep their heads up through the struggles of the season. While the team has not met expectations, they still have made sure to maintain the game plan and not switch things up too much.
“Some coaches will change things up a lot…we have to continue to still work on what has been successful and continue to build on that,” said George Archuleta, head coach.
The team all acknowledged how even though it has not necessarily been the ideal year, they are still in it and the season isn’t over yet.
“It’s definitely been a rough season, but we’re not giving up yet, we definitely have more in the tank,” said Brendan Johnson, senior.
Despite struggles, the players continually encourage one another and focus on the positivity within their season.
“We just keep motivating each other…we don’t put each other down,” said Caden Willis, senior.
Part of building each other up is being able to keep calm and stay focused, which the team admitted they can struggle with.
“The biggest challenge has been having a…straight mind and just keep on working towards our objective and not losing sight of that,” Willis said.
The coaching staff has been instilling the principle of having a short memory when it comes to the bad, and simply looking towards the good.
“We have to be like a goldfish and have a short memory, we just need to let go of the things we have messed up on,” Archuleta said.
Another core principle of the team is the concept of comradery and working as a unit, because the team can not be successful if there’s no team chemistry.
“We travel together as a team, we meditate as a team, we work out as a team and we just spend time together,” Willis said.
Boy’s soccer is still in contention for the playoffs and while they are not focused fully on that right now, they know there is a chance they can make a run.
“Hopefully a few things fall our way as well…[to get into playoffs or win championships we] have to be lucky but we have to be ready,” Archuleta said.
JV:
With every new season, OHS JV soccer brings in new talent, mostly consisting of young players looking to prove themselves. All of the new talent brings in fresh team dynamics and players have to build chemistry fast in order to be successful.
“I think the biggest challenge has been…getting to know people, we didn’t really have chemistry and now we’re slowly working and getting better,” said Seth Blasing, freshman.
The team also feels they start to lose focus on the goal at hand and end up trailing off towards the end of games.
“I think we just need to work on staying…focused on the game especially when it gets to late parts,” Blasing said.
The team gave credit to their defenders and attributed them for being a big reason the team has won a lot of their games.
“I think our defending has been pretty good this season…we have good defenders and they’ve kept goals out of our net,” said Landon Dimmick, freshman.
While the team believes they are doing a good job at keeping goals out of their net, they still believe they can work on scoring more goals.
“I think we can improve on our goal scoring because we haven’t scored a lot,” Dimmick said.
Due to most of the varsity players being older than the JV players, the JV team looks up to varsity as role models whom they can learn a lot from.
“[The varsity players] set a really good example for us because they play fast and we kind of just model our game off of them,” Dimmick said.
The team continues to reiterate the need to remain focused and stay locked in during their season.
“We can’t worry about what’s outside and what we’re going to do after the game…we just need to focus on the job at hand,” Blasing said.
