Boys Soccer – The Oglethorpe boys’ soccer team was 4-8 for the season last year. In some respects the difficulties the team experienced can be placed at the feet of last year’s seniors. “Some of those guys thought they were better than they were,” boys soccer head coach Jim Norton said. “Some of them played only two years and thought they knew everything. They butted heads with Coach Colquitt (who is Coach Norton’s assistant this year) [The seniors went on strike, too, in an effort to force Coach Colquitt to change his mind about a style of play decision]. They weren’t real good at leading and I don’t think any of the guys this year will miss them. I like a lot of the guys personally, but I don’t think they made good team players.”
The flip side of that according to Coach Norton are the younger guys, some of which have been playing varsity since ninth grade. “The younger guys will step right in to the spots the seniors had. You can plug OT (Otoniel Padilla) in at forward and not lose anything,” remarks Coach Norton. “On the other side you can put Joshua Tuttle or Cody Flores and not miss a thing. They’ve played a long time and know the game.”
“What we are going to do is give the guys on the field more responsibility, we are going to give them more of a say of what happens on the field,” Coach Norton said when asked how he is going to improve the team. “My coaching philosophy is it’s a player’s game. It’s not something I need to control. We will provide them with a framework to practice and get better, but ultimately players decide it on the field. The more we preach that to them, the more responsibility we give them, then they will take ownership of what happens on the field. This isn’t like basketball or football where you can call plays from the sidelines. Soccer is too fluid so the kids on the field are going to have to take ownership. If they want it they’ll do it. And if they don’t want it, it’ll be just like last year.”
The soccer folks, both boys and girls, have been going through conditioning for the past couple of weeks. “There’s been a good response from the younger guys,” said Coach Norton. “Some of the guys are working and can’t participate. I can feel a better unity between the guys. They all get along and nobody is picking on each other. It’s a good fun group.”
Coach Norton can also see a difference since the weight room and the lifting program has been in place. Norton says that not only is it important that the players have leg strength but upper body strength is just as vital. “When you have to challenge somebody for the ball you need a strong core to deal with that. Plus you’ll have better balance.”
Coach Norton also thinks that a varied training regimen is necessary for soccer. “Speed training is good for straight ahead speed. But soccer players will run flat out, then trot, then walk, and then run flat out again. They have to run for forty minutes, get a break then run for forty minutes again. So while speed training is good we also need endurance training. We had maybe half the team run cross country this year. So while they might not increase their running speed considerably, they will increase their endurance.”
If one of the problem areas last year was on field leadership then Coach Norton is looking at two or three people to step-up in that regard this year. “Cody Boarders may not always be the most vocal leader but he will lead by example because of the effort he puts in the game. Then there is Sean Atkinson and Griffin Giles. Two kids who have been playing club; basically the blue print of how you become better soccer players.”
[Along with Giles, Christian Jarecki, Ezra Underwood and Zammie Mendez, all OCHS soccer team members, played club soccer for Oconee Futbol Club this past fall under the leadership of Coach Ed Rock. Their team won their division championship with a season record of 9 wins, 2 draws, and 1 loss. Sean Atkinson played club ball for Athens United.]
Regarding the younger players Coach Norton is looking forward to working with them; mentioning Kyle Yeargin, Nick Sanchez, Louis Vasquez and Lee Boswell as players with potential.
OC’s region foes will not change this year. Teams like Jackson and East Jackson, Jefferson, North Oconee and Elbert will be on the menu once again. “I don’t see any big difference in skill,” remarked Coach Norton. “What I see is a big difference in athleticism and hustle. If we can out hustle people, if we are missing a little bit of skill but out hustle teams then we’ll do okay. We should be able to beat Hart again this year. We should be able to be Elbert, too. We’ll be playing Jefferson, they’ve gotten a lot better, but playing them on our field and not one of those little Rec fields might help us. Jackson was good last year and they’ll be good this year.”
OC will start this year against Madison Co. “We played them last year so we’ll play them again this year,” Coach Norton said when asked about the pre-region lineup. “We’ll be playing East Hall. Greene County we’re playing to give us a chance to see what they look like since they will be in our region next year. The same is true for Riverside Military Academy; they are in our region so we can see what they have. We have a double header with Riverside so we can get some playing time for our younger guys. The players on our varsity team are at a point where they will probably get 80 minutes a game. I don’t see a lot of subbing in and out. So this will get our, what I call our reserve team, some playing time.”
OC will play a pre-region game against Social Circle and Washington-Wilkes as well. The Social Circle game will give OC a preview of things to come when the new region comes into effect next year. Washington-Wilkes, on the other hand, just started a soccer program this year. Moreover, their soccer team, reportedly, is co-ed, which means that only the boys can play against WW.
There will be a parent meeting on Thursday night, January 26th, at 5:30pm in the media center at the high school for parents of the boy’s soccer team. The first game will be on Friday, February 10th, at home against Madison Co.
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