Last year, the boys varsity soccer team went 17-2, went undefeated in the EKL for the first time in the program’s history, ranked 11^th in the nation at one point and finished third at state. According to head coach Rick Pribyl, the team graduated 18 or 19 seniors and only has three returning starters. While the three starters bring a little bit of experience, Pribyl said the team is very young and untested.

According to senior captain Taylor Wiebke, the team’s biggest strengths this season will be their chemistry. Last year the team was segregated into different groups, Wiebke said, but this year is the first year the team has been getting along. Wiebke said this is mainly because there is not one person who thinks they are better than everyone else, and everyone plays their role for the team.

“I’m really looking forward to playing with a bunch of kids in my grade that I’ve never been able to play with,” Wiebke said. “Last year I was one of three juniors on varsity so I didn’t really feel like part of the junior class. This year I can play with people I’ve been waiting to play with for years and years. One for example, is [senior] Ian Arch. I’ve been excited to play with him forever and now we finally get to play in the middle together.”

This year’s team will have a very strong midfield, Pribyl said. All the midfielders can handle the ball very well, and Pribyl said if the team controls the ball they control the game. According to Pribyl, the team’s biggest asset will come from how hard the team works.

“We will know what we need to work on [after we play some games],” Pribyl said. “The first ten games of a season we go to school on ourselves to find out what our strengths are and what we need to improve on. That’s what we attack. We build on our strengths and go back and try to straighten out our weaknesses.”

The soccer team will play their first game of the season tonight against BVN at 7:30 p.m. at the DAC. According to Wiebke, since this is the first game, the athletes will be nervous due to lack of experience at the varsity level. However, Wiebke said had the athletes on JV last year gone to another school; they would have been varsity players.

“In order to win tonight, it’s all about our ball movement,” Wiebke said. “We’re not the biggest team around so we’re not going to win anything out of the air. We have to play quick and to our style because you can’t lose a game if the other team doesn’t have the ball.”

Pribyl said tonight’s game will be very intense and for the most part it will not matter which team is the better team because the game will be run on adrenaline. The players run 150 mph for as long as they can, Pribyl said, and then they begin to drop. In order to win, Pribyl believes BVNW has to be in better shape and able to keep their heads.

“I’m excited for every soccer season,” Pribyl said. “I love the game and being with the kids. I love to see a bunch of boys who show up that are keenly excited, and [I love to] watch as the season goes by and they turn into men.”