With large spaces to fill after a majority of starting players from last year graduated, boys soccer’s season is underway. In their first game they faced off against the South East High School Jaguars, unfortunately losing 4-1. According to junior forward Alex Madatyan, last year’s class of seniors taught him and the rest of the returning varsity players valuable lessons about playing high school soccer that they are using as the season begins to kick off.
“It’s a lot more gritty, so I think you just need to have energy, passion, and you need to want to win, and whichever team wants to win more will ultimately win the game or have a better chance. That’s the mentality I learned from them [last year’s seniors], and want to bring in this year,” Madatyan said.
Madatyan was one of three returning Varsity players who learned these lessons, while the rest of the team was left to navigate playing on varsity for the first time. As connecting passes began seeming more difficult, despite Redondo keeping control of the ball for longer than South East, the Jaguars were able to capitalize on each tiny mistake being made by Redondo. By half-time the score climbed to 2-0 with South East winning.
“After a couple mistakes or all the lucky calls given to the other team, some people dropped their heads, which in turn just made everything worse. Though, towards the end of the game, we started to pick it up again, and I don’t think the score really reflected that,” Madatyan said.
As they came back into the game after halftime with a positive shift in energy, Redondo was able to match South East’s physicality. Despite the effort, the Jaguars were still able to execute successful offensive plays that drove them to score two more goals in the second half. Before the game ended, senior Sean Gillette was able to score a goal after many previously missed shots on goal from him and other attackers.
“There’s so many more games left in the season, so, I feel like as we practice more, we have more games, that chemistry will start to build even more and then we’ll create even more scoring opportunities,” Gillette said.
For forward Sean Gillette, scoring just one goal gave him proof that even in moments of defeat, they still have the potential to be a great team as long as they continue to work hard. With the occurrence of incomplete passes and miscommunications, the team only learned what they needed to improve on. Senior defender Chris Villarreal, who played a huge role in the defense, “tried his best” to begin improving the team’s communication skills all throughout the game, and pointed out that this game versus South East was only the beginning and not the end.
“This game can’t define us. We just have to bounce back on Friday and perform better, and not make sloppy mistakes, because we want to be the best,” Villarreal said. “Obviously with the seniors gone, we know it’s a big role to fill and we want to win CIF. So we have to fill in those spots and perform better.”
