Though still building a program to compete on a statewide level, Thunder Mountain High School\u2019s girls and boys soccer teams feel they\u2019re building momentum this season.<\/p>\n
The TMHS girls soccer program opened their regular season with a 0-2 loss and a 1-1 tie at Ketchikan High School last weekend. They face Juneau-Douglas High School this weekend at 8 p.m. Friday at Adair-Kennedy. <\/p>\n
The Falcons boys started their season last weekend with 0-6 and 0-7 losses to JDHS.<\/p>\n
Both programs are stronger than last year and feature a glut of young talent. Coupling their underclassmen with returning experience, both Falcons squads feel poised to launch to the next level.<\/p>\n
\nGirls team builds <\/strong><\/p>\n chemistry<\/strong><\/p>\n The Falcons girls soccer program includes only four seniors this year, but with 36 girls on JV and varsity, their younger players will be called upon for varsity caps.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve lost a lot of our vital players but that\u2019s given the new players an opportunity to come up,\u201d senior midfielder Alana Bryson said. \u201cWe\u2019re definitely learning to play together, learning our chemistry \u2014 it\u2019s like starting over.\u201d<\/p>\n Bryson added that, though the team may be young and inexperienced, they have the attitude to make big strides.<\/p>\n \u201cI think our biggest strength is being coachable players. \u2026 A big key in finding a good soccer player is you have to be able to accept advice and try and change and become better,\u201d Bryson said.<\/p>\n Said TMHS coach Kris Coffee: \u201cIt\u2019s really exciting because we have a lot of young, upcoming players. We\u2019re going to see a lot of freshmen and sophomores stepping it up and a lot of juniors taking leadership roles, which is great for the program.\u201d<\/p>\n With such a young, malleable squad, coach John Newell saw an opportunity to implement some new passing schemes with his young players. Newell also stressed that every player seems to be on board with developing the Falcons\u2019 team identity.<\/p>\n \u201cTeam chemistry is a huge thing, and these girls really seem to have it. \u2026 They\u2019re starting to buy into these new passing patterns that we have that they haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d Newell said, referencing a focus on tight passing triangles and off-the-ball movement made famous in the Netherlands and more recently by the dominant FC Barcelona.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone would like to play like Barcelona, but not everyone has Lionel Messi on the team,\u201d he said. \u201cBut our girls are getting there. They\u2019re getting to where they\u2019re moving the ball faster, passing quicker, and moving into position off the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n Boys look to turn tide<\/strong><\/p>\n TMHS\u2019 boys soccer squad didn\u2019t garner a win last year, but with some incoming club players hopes run high that they\u2019ll produce some positive results this season.<\/p>\n Like the girls squad, coach Tim Lewis recognized his younger players will play a key role in turning the tide this year.<\/p>\n \u201cTraditionally a lot of the club players go to (Juneau-Douglas High School),\u201d he said. \u201cThis year we kind of had a 50-50 split of kids choosing TM over JD, so this is kind of new. The freshman class is a good class this year, they\u2019re skilled and we\u2019re going to have some freshmen playing varsity. There is a lot of talent, and not to say we haven\u2019t had talent in the past, but we haven\u2019t had a lot of players who have been playing organized soccer for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n Senior defender Ben Garrett can already see the potential in this year\u2019s group.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a lot stronger than in previous years. \u2026 It seems like we\u2019re getting a solid team together, a lot of good freshmen,\u201d he said. \u201cI am excited for sure, I just want to leave the team in a better place than it started. Our attitude is noticeably better. I\u2019m optimistic,\u201d Garret said.<\/p>\n Senior goalkeeper John Seymore described TMHS\u2019 tactical strengths.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re doing more conditioning this year, so we\u2019re a little bit more fit than most teams. We plan to run,\u201d he said, adding that their strength is \u201cplaying down our wings and getting crosses in; playing through our back line.\u201d<\/p>\n TMHS plays their next game at home at 1:15 p.m. Friday, April 29, against Service.<\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Kevin Gullufsen at kevin.gullufsen@juneauempire.com.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Though still building a program to compete on a statewide level, Thunder Mountain High School\u2019s girls and boys soccer teams feel they\u2019re building momentum this season. The TMHS girls soccer program opened their regular season with a 0-2 loss and a 1-1 tie at Ketchikan High School last weekend. They face Juneau-Douglas High School this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":4747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-4746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4746"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=4746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}