As the boys’ soccer team kicks off their 2009-10 season, they seek to build off last year and win with the help of a new coach and young spirit.
“I think we have a pretty good team this year,” said sophomore defender Manish Raghavan. ” We don’t have that many seniors, but I think that we’ll be fine.”
The team has only two seniors, a couple of juniors and mostly sophomores. Some new key players are sophomore Rajiv Ramakabir, and sophomore midfielder Manuel Stimmer. At the moment, the only seniors on the team are Dale Everett and Sawan Shah. This could become a problem during the season when the young team is put up against the tough competition from other schools such as Mountain View and Los Altos. Team captains have yet to be decided.
“It’s going to be a hard season because we’re really young and inexperienced,”said sophomore center-defender Jonathan Junqua. “If we start working together more than last year, then it shouldn’t be a problem.”
The team hopes to get over this with the help of the new coach Adam Clarke.
“[Our new coach is] a lot more relaxed than the last coach,” said senior outside midfielder/forward Dale Everett. “He has a more hands-off approach, whereas the last coach was more hard core.”
Players hope Clarke’s different approach will help the boys do better in the season and help them rebuild off the last season. Last year, the boys placed seventh overall in the El Camino league out of 10 teams. Even though they are playing in the same league, the graduation of star player Chris Chung, who now plays at UCSC, Hoffman Hibbett and senior Sean Ashe’s decision not to return to the team has left the Falcons’ middle with large gaps to fill and will make it harder for the team to place higher up in the ranks.
“[Chung, Hibbet, and Ashe] were our core players,” said Everett. “We’re going to have to try and play our best to make up for the loss.”
The boys are going to have to face some tough competition early on as they play last year’s CCS champions in their pre-season.
“Our pre-season games are pretty tough,” said Raghavan. “Hopefully, people wont get to discouraged by that.”
The Falcons kicked of their pre-season with a game against Los Gatos on Dec. 1 at home and will later on play in the Homestead Tournament on the weekend of Dec 5, but due to printing deadlines results could not be published.
