By Travis Smola
The Vicksburg varsity boys’ soccer team is going through some growing pains again. But this year’s team has more youth than ever before.
There are just two seniors in Joe Brady and Jay Snyder. The rest of the team is made up mostly of sophomore and freshman players.
“I’m preparing this team for the next two or three years,” Head Coach Lahou Boulnemour said after a 4-0 loss to Delton Kellogg. After the game, Boulnemour encouraged his players to put extra work in on their ball-handling skills. The Bulldogs let a few too many passes get away from them once they got the ball into scoring contention. Another concern is getting the young squad to better work on their conditioning. Some of the boys simply ran out of gas in the hot conditions later in the game.
“If you’re not conditioned in the first half of the year, you’re done, you’re going to get beat,” Boulnemour said.
The rough start to the season aside, there have been flashes of what could be with this team. Their second match of the year they beat Parchment 5-3. “This team is much more disciplined than last year,” Boulnemour said.
In fact, he has very high hopes for the future if he can get everyone on the same page. “In the next two or three years I think this team will be unbeatable.”