Green Mountain Soccer – Page 2 – Defend the Mountain

Soccer Baseball 9/23

We have a home JV match Saturday, September 23rd at 10am at our turf field hosting Littleton. All players, including guys not suiting up for the game, are required to be there.

After the game, at roughly noon, we are going to have some fun playing soccer baseball on our grass field. How does soccer baseball differ from kickball, you might be wondering? Well, there are goal keepers, you can have multiple runners on each base, and the defense can’t use their hands (except the goal keepers). It is super fun, laid back, and easy to learn.

This is a full program soccer baseball game – parents, siblings and alumni included!

Effort

We had 160 minutes of nice performances Tuesday taking both games from Bear Creek by identical 3-0 scores. That is two more clean sheets led in back by Brady, Shaun, Luke, Dom, Miles, Peter and Tyler. Tarin added two more to his goal tally as our program leading scorer, and Nolan got a goal and an assist. Dean and Jake also came up with big assists. Elliot started what is sure to be a prolific four year goal scoring career with two on Tuesday, with X tallying a goal and an assist. Kaden had a soccer assist and and hockey assist as he was impressive on the wing.

Progress

Coming off a week where our program hit our team-culture-rock-bottom, we bounced back and made some serious progress this week. Together.

Leave the Past Behind

We have a cancer festering in our program. You might think I am crazy to lead with such a negative statement in such a public way, but I am calling on everyone in the program – players, coaches and parents alike – to help us turn this around before the season is lost. This past week we conducted a systematic investigation, with support of GMHS administration, that uncovered hazing/bullying, teasing, childish behavior, and disrespectful varsity players in the grandstands at both our JV game and a game of another GMHS sport. This will simply not be tolerated. Your coaching staff now has a clear understanding of how a team with this kind of conditioning and tallent went 3-11-1 last year. The culture needs a complete overhaul, and we need your help.

Road Trip

Sun Setting Behind the Mountain after Shutout of George Washington

Green Mountain Soccer is 1-0 after successfully defending the mountain, refusing to concede to George Washington, on Friday night. Colin dropped in a great goal from distance from the left channel on an assist from Kaden. Shaun, along with a stifling performance from centerbacks Miles and Giancarlo, delivered the first clean sheet of the fall campaign. Richard made some notable runs on the wing, and Brett earned the honor from Coach Rigo to carry the victory flag in cooldown. It was a true team win! And the best news…there is still lots of room for improvement as we keep working to get wide and get better.

This coming week, we take a charter bus to Elizabeth on our only full-program-travelling-together away games of the year. All players are expected to ride to the games on the bus, and to ride back to school on the bus as well. There is a great opportunity for team building on the bus, and the parents have a plan to provide dinner on our road trip. Let’s make the most of our only bus of the year! Here are the details:

It’s Game Time!

There is A LOT in this post. Please find the time to read through so you don’t miss anything.

Weekly Training Schedule

Week One

At a GMHS athletic department meeting on Thursday night, I was asked to choose just one word to describe our boy’s soccer program for the 2023 season. I thought about the feedback I received from the players and parents throughout the summer. On the fourth day of Team Week, the consensus among the team was that success will be defined by us bonding, playing for each other and ignoring individual stats. Teamwork. Pulling each other through the fight.

Together

August 12th Scrimmages

At the end of tryouts week, we are scheduled to participate in a multi-team scrimmage at Mullen High School. This is a really exciting opportunity to see where we are going into the season.

Schedule the Week of August 7th:

Monday, August 7th, Tryouts 4pm – 5:30pm

Tuesday, August 8th, Tryouts 5:30pm – 7pm

Wednesday, August 9th, Tryouts 4pm – 5:30pm

Thursday, August 10th, Tryouts 5:30pm – 7pm

Friday, August 11th, Training 4pm – 5:30pm

Saturday, August 12th, Scrimmages at Mullen: Varsity 8am – 1pm, JV 1pm – Late Afternoon

Team Week Details

Team Week: July 31st – August 4th, 2023

In this week before tryouts for the 2023 fall season, we will have team-building activities each day, Monday through Friday. For each event, we will meet at the school at the designated time, and carpool from there. Parents are responsible for providing or approving transportation for your students (coaches are not responsible for transportation). Players must be enrolled at GMHS for the 2023/2024 school year, and have completed all athletics registration steps, in order to participate in Team Week. The Green Mountain Athletics Registration page will be linked here when registration for the fall of 2023 opens.

Good Start!

Thanks to all of the players who got the preseason started today! Everyone was early, and everyone had something shin-guard-like in your socks. Please wear CHSAA approved shin guards going forward. You can look it up on the CHSAA website, or just wear shin guards you can buy in a store (you can wear child sizes if you want them small). Remember, late or no shin guards means you can’t train that day. Oh, and always bring water.

Tuesday we go 6pm – 8pm on the turf (arrive about 5:45pm). Coach Rigo and Coach John will run the field-player training while I am coaching our goal keeper camp on the other side of the fields. There is still time to register for keeper camp if you are interested. Here is the registration link.