As the soccer season comes to a close, we interviewed the captain of the men’s soccer team to get his perspective on his season.  We started off by getting a short review of their last game in his words here is what he had to say; “Our last game of the season we played Lethbridge who is 2nd in the south and is a very strong team. Having a very depleted roster of 12 guys we were ready for the challenge and went out on the pitch and played a very strong first half even though the score was 2-0 for Lethbridge. In the second half 5th year striker Jaeden Norton scored to make it 3-1. With 15 minutes left we start to play more offensive to push for some goals but come up short with a 5-1 loss. Aside of the score I was very proud of how every guy played for our last game of the season.”

This season, I think, was a great season for Vikings soccer, even though we had a record of 2-12, which is not good, but coming off a couple zero-win seasons I like to think it was a win in my eyes. Aside from that I don’t think we met our expectations for this season. Going into the season we were in a new division and were hoping to prove ourselves with a winning record but throughout the season we lost a third of our roster to injuries and other issues. It is tough to keep up with the top-notch teams when that happens.

Compared to last season I think we played better, especially coming into a new stronger division for soccer this year. I think this was because we had a core group of guys that were really committed and dedicated to the team this season.  We won two games and scored almost 4 times as many goals as we did last year.

Our best game this season, if you look at from a score perspective, was our away game against Ambrose. We won 2-1 with a man down the entire game. We had two goals from Jaeden, and they only scored with one-minute left. But some of our best games I think were some of the last even though the result wasn’t what we wanted. We played with a certain confidence that we didn’t have early in the season. We moved the ball well, held some possession, and every player was on their game.

Some memorable moments this season were of course winning 2 games, as well as some absolutely beautiful snipes from Paul Lovsin, Qais Alizada and Jaeden Norton.

I think our toughest and most hard-fought game are our second game against SAIT, who is 1st.  The game before we lost our key starting midfield Paul to an injury and we were down in numbers. But aside from all the injuries and loss of players all the guys travel 3 hours to Calgary to battle against the best team in the league.

As a fifth-year student and athlete I am graduating. But all I can hope for is that all the boys continue to be dedicated to the team and sport and work every practice to improve as players and to continue the upward trend of Vikings soccer.

(Originally published November 6, 2019)