On Monday, Jan. 24 the boy’s varsity soccer team had a successful home game against St. Francis, in their first official game of the soccer season. It was a very intense game but according to the result, which was 5:0, very clear and only in one direction.

“The game plan was high intensity and pressure from the start,” team captain Ryland Scott said. “Going into the game we knew they didn’t have as many subs.” 

Scott, typically playing as a defender, played the whole game and played in three different positions. Holding mid, right mid and attacking mid.

“I felt like I played pretty good,” Scott said. “I could have done better with marking my man but on the offense I felt great on the distribution of the ball.” 

The matchup was not completely equal as the Darlington team had many more experienced players.

”I saw that most of the players were younger,” sophomore goalkeeper Jacob Blatt said. “I just tried to remember and stick to the things the goalkeeper coach told me before the game.”

It was a very special game for Blatt as it was his first official game. 

“I think that I got a little nervous when the other team had a one-on-one on me,” Blatt said. “I also made an amount of mistakes I can learn from.”

The week before the team lost its first scrimmage.

“We performed a lot better today than we did Friday, Jan. 21, and our finishing was much better in the final third,” Scott said.

The team is very young on average and many new players have joined the team.

“We can definitely improve our communication because we broke down defensively,” Scott said.

Scott has already played for the soccer team last year and knows it can not end how it ended last year, for Blatt, on the other hand, all this is a whole new experience. 

“Our team needs to work on playing the right ball and to be consistent with ball control,” Blatt said. “I need to work on especially attacking the ball as a goalkeeper.”