Hard work, dedication, sweat and months of practice. All of the hours with the sun baking their faces, sweat dripping down their backs, and lungs burning for air as they run; are all for the game.

The boys started their practices in July, a month before school started. The team generally had 2 or 3 games every week. Now that school has started, and the regular season has come to an end, playoff season has begun.

“I think we’ve done better than most people expected us to coming into the year,” Senior Sam Sharpless, the starting goalie said. “Our first goal coming into every year is to get into the playoffs, and now that we have a spot in them, we expect to make a good run in them too.”

With the regular soccer season signing off, fans are wondering what the future seasons and games will hold. Will players step up to fill the shoes of: Seniors Nate Lewis, Collin Gilarno and Sam Sharpless? Will they continue to succeed as the soccer team has done in the past?

“I feel that we’ve done really good,” Freshman Ben Wright said, “If we didn’t argue near the end of the season, I feel we would have done a lot better. Since that happened though, we were just trying to be heroes, some games we played well and brought home a win, others we didn’t.”

Now more than ever, it’s crucial for the team to come together, so they can play well in the playoffs. This is the second year that the team has qualified for the playoffs. This being the seniors’ last year of high school soccer, making playoffs, once again, is huge.

“We’ve worked really hard with the guys that we’ve had,” Sharpless said, “A lot of underclassmen have had to step up with us losing a lot of people due to injuries, graduation, etc. I do think we deserve a spot because we play good and hard and most of the time we don’t get the kind of credit we deserve for it.”

Though the seniors won’t be on the team next year, the current sophomores and juniors will be, “ It means a lot for the team to make it to the playoffs this year,” Sophomore Joey Pail said, “Mostly everyone was convinced that with the graduation of our seniors last year we wouldn’t make it to the playoffs this year. Making it to the playoffs shows that we are still a good team and can pull our own weight. Also, making it to the playoffs really hyped the team and made everyone excited because they weren’t really sure about making it due to being a younger team, and that this is our first time being in single A. Now that we are here, we are ready for whatever comes and plan to go all the way.”
As for the current freshmen, this is a whole new experience for them, because it’s their first time making the playoffs as high school players.

“I’m excited for playoffs,” Wright said, “I know that we all worked hard to get to this point, but now we have to work even harder in order to keep the team, the family from falling apart.”

The boys played their first playoff game against Riverview on Oct. 20 at Ambridge, and the game ended with a score of 3-1 Riverview.