(Avoca) With a mix of veterans and inexperience this season AHSTW boys soccer coach James Johnson admits his team is still a work in progress. “That’s a pretty safe bet right now. We’ve got work to do. The kids know that and they are up to the challenge.”
The 2-3 Vikings on Monday will host St. Albert. “I look for them to be athletic and physical. They always are. They are well coached and possess the ball well.” Johnson says, “I think we have the athletes that we can compete if we play well. We need to give 100% effort and battle for all those 50-50 balls and try and come out on the winning end of that in order to have a shot at winning the game in the end.”
Coach Johnson’s squad had just 13 players available on Thursday and fell short against Panorama by a final of 8-2. “A couple of really strong athletes were not able to join us and it made for a big challenge. Panorama has some athletic and quick kids and that made a huge difference.” Johnson says, “We didn’t play our best game and they took advantage and really took it to us in the first half. We made some adjustments and the second half we played a lot better, but we dug our self a big enough hole that it was too much to overcome.”
AHSTW’s three losses are to teams that have already combined to win ten matches. “Obviously you want to win when you have the opportunity, but what it does do is put us in a good position to learn from what we did well or what we didn’t do well. At the end of the season when it really counts hopefully we are starting to play our best ball and maybe we can challenge some teams and go on a run late.”
The Vikings have one of the younger teams they’ve fielded in recent history. “We have a little learning curve with them to get into the swing of things. Some of the m are getting there. I feel it’s going to take a few more games to really get accustomed to the way we want to play and that’s okay. We have great kids. I wouldn’t trade them for the world.” Johnson says, “We’ll take those growing pains as they come and adjust and try to get better from it.”
Kayden Baxter and Ethan Holtz each have five goals on the season and Brayden Lund has four.
AHSTW coach James Johnson:
