This season has been up and down for the varsity soccer team. They started off going 8-0-0 near the middle of September. But shortly after, they picked up a couple of losses and a tie. The team finished up the season with a record of 13-6-1. This year’s team includes one of the largest group of seniors yet, with 17. In the beginning of the season, the boys traveled to Lapeer to play in a tournament facing Imlay City, Lapeer, and Fenton and pulled through to win the tournament. The Chieftains then went on to face their rivals, Stevenson, to play for the Jonah cup. They ended up winning 4-0 and taking the trophy home. They won next 5 games as well, until an intense game with Grosse Point South ended their winning streak.
“The season is going great so far,” sophomore Anton Cacaj said. “We are winning our games, and we will win districts.”
As the season went on, many players picked up injuries leaving the boys with key players missing, but many players stepped up when called upon to fill in the roles and ended up being successful.
“In the beginning, we started well,” senior Michael Yatooma said. “We are loosing a couple of games right now, but we are going to come back and win districts.”
The team lost a few more games and just barely missed out on winning the league.
“The season could’ve gone better,” senior Nolan Schmelzer said, “but I’m having fun, and I feel like this is a great way to end my senior year.”
The Chieftains then went on to play Romeo in their first game of districts. The boys battled hard with Romeo in the first 80 minutes of full time ending 0-0. This meant the game go into two 15 minute halves of overtime. The first half of overtime was 0-0, and they then entered the second. With 46 seconds to go, Romeo found a way through the defense and scored a goal that would see them through to the next round of districts. The Chieftains were of course devastated, but they had a very positive record, and won 2 competitions. The Chieftains had many standout players this season as well such as junior Diego Arce scoring an impressive 15 goals throughout the season. Senior captain Luke Cacaj scoring 6 goals playing defense and led the team to many clean sheet victories while doing so. This was a successful season for the varsity soccer team and they plan to do even better next season.
