Head Coach: Connor McGoldridge
Last year’s record: 1-10-1
Recap: The varsity team struggled last year in the El Camino division, but players are looking to bounce back this season.
Key Matchups: Gunn, Lynbrook
Star Players: Senior center back Itamar Shoshani, senior attacking midfielder Finn Smith, senior striker Langdon Huynh senior center back, Joshua Bang and junior left back Vihaan Bhaduri, junior goalie Orion Tamas King.
Key losses to graduation: Mohit Gandluru, Yul Hong
League: El Camino
Prognosis:
The Falcons enter the new year with a strong group of underclassmen. They lost two players from last year’s team and also sustained the key loss of talented junior center midfielder Matthias Casanova to an outside league called MLS Next.
“I think we’ve got a good group of sophomores and seniors who can definitely help the team and could lead by example on the field with the energy they bring and the effort,” head coach Connor McGoldridge said, who has been coaching the Falcons for 2 years.
The 18-player team also has been focusing on specific areas to improve from last season during practices, such as certain skill sets and stronger teamwork.
“I feel historically, we’ve struggled a bit on set pieces, whether it’s free kicks or corners, and not having big presences, both offensively and defensively,” McGoldridge said. “But I see that as something that they can definitely kind of work to be better at. I also feel like we have a lot of technically sharp players. I feel as we continue to work on these aspects of our game, the team will continue to improve.”
Compared to previous years, the team also has more promising sophomores joining the varsity ranks — notably right back Benjamin Bolger, left back Viggo Jensen and center back Warren Yang.
“So far, I can see that we have a really solid team and coach, although the season has just begun we are already working really well together,” Bolger said. “I think that we have a good season coming up and we will really be able to get to know each other, both on the field and off the field, during preseason.”
The team’s first preseason game took place on Nov. 20 against Santa Teresa and resulted in a 2-1 win. Smith was the star of the game, scoring both of the goals.
“I thought the game went well considering we have a good amount of new players on varsity that played a big role in the win. I think a big contributing factor was the chemistry that our team has quickly built,” Smith said. “Last season we did not have good results so it feels good to start with a win going into the season and for myself it feels good getting the two goals.”
Since then, the team has gone 1-2 in their preseason games, winning 4-1 against Oak Grove on Dec. 5, and losing 3-1 to Salinas on Dec. 17 and 4-1 to Aragon on Dec. 9. Their regular season starts on Jan. 3 Gunn.
