Lucas Bieck and his U10 team won their season for the third time in a row with a record of 61-1.
“We had a good mix of returning players and new players with little to no soccer experience,” Bieck said.
The team lost a game during fair week early in the season, due to missing some key players, so they realized they had to lock in order to get the top spot again. Bieck said the team worked hard during practices and showed up ready to play each week leading to a dominating finish.
“The players with experience, including my son, really stepped up as leaders and helped the other players to be contributors late in the season,” he said. “That really helped the overall team development and chemistry to close out the season strong, not to mention their individual and team skills grew tremendously.” Most players are returning this year for the spring season to fight for a fourth consecutive first place.
“I’m super proud of all the boys for their respectfulness, coach-ability, teamwork and great attitudes,” Bieck said. “It’s a lot of fun to work them all. I love coaching all these Edna boys in multiple sports and helping their continued athletic development. Looking forward to the many seasons with them in the future.”
U9 Edna Wolves
Coach Ahmed Abdulrahman and the U9 Edna Wolves boys were the fall season champions with an undefeated season, 8-0. They earned 24 points in the league (three points for each win), and the team in second place only accumulated 15 points in the Victoria Youth Soccer League.
Abdulrahman, who went semi-pro when he was younger, coached last year and some of the same boys returned this year, but most were beginners, he said.
“Most of the players last year, it was their first time playing soccer,” he added. “But their confidence grew, their understanding of the game improved, and they picked everything up pretty quick.”
Abdulrahman commented on a few superstars and most improved. “My superstar, Dean Williams, we call him Mac, he had the spotlight from the first day. Noah Garcia progressed a lot, he used to play in Victoria. Thiago Hernandez, it was his first time playing soccer and he did amazing, he improved very quickly.”
The new season begins in a couple of months for the spring season and will last for two months.
U10 Lady Wolves
Coach Gamaliel Guerrero loves soccer and was excited to coach the U10 girls last year for the fall season. As a versatile player himself, being able to play all the positions at a high level, he realized he wanted to coach young ones so they could find their passion for it, too.
Guerrero has coached boys in the past, and took a minute to talk about the comparison to coaching girls.
“Boys, they tend to be more serious about the sport, where with girls, they care but not like the boys yet. And these girls were young, they were very much beginners,” he said. “Boys always have soccer players they look up to, but there aren’t as many soccer players for girls to look up to. Not only that, you have to patient with girls and they can sometimes get stressed. Some were scared at first to get on the field.”
Unfortunately, the Lady Wolves lost all of their games, but they’re just getting started, and Guerrero said if you teach girls correctly they learn it well and after some training they’d be able to play against boys if they wanted.
The Lady Wolves was comprised of some six and seven year old girls, which made sense as to their iffiness to get on the field, not to mention they were playing girls older than they were.
“I told them, you just gotta hit the ball and don’t be scared of anyone,” Guerrero said. “I needed them to lose though, so they could want to start winning. Soccer is for all ages, but you’re not going to learn in one day, you gotta keep changing.”
