By Jamari Saint Cyr
The Apopka High School soccer team is kicking off to a great start for their new season. Tryouts were held on and October 17th for the girls soccer team and Monday, October 23rd for the boys soccer team. Tryouts for both are currently ongoing and are being led by returning Coach Matthews and new coming Coach Cassidy respectively in preparation for the new season.
Photo credit: Mrs. Springer, Yearbook
We sat down with Coach Matthews who coaches the girls soccer team and is coaching soccer for his twenty-sixth season. In his years of coaching, aside from soccer, he’s coached flag football as an assistant coach as well as Junior Varsity volleyball for about seven to eight years on and off. Although he has a love for many sports, soccer is one that stands out for him among the others.
“Well, I like athletics and several different sports,” Coach Matthews said, “but it’s just—to me—it’s been a pleasure being around the players and watching them as they’re going from being a freshmen to a senior, a lot of them going on to college and having a good college career. But I just enjoy being out there coaching. I’ve kind of had that in my mind when I was growing up, and I thought it would probably be football, but it turned out it was soccer.”
With a new season on the horizon for our soccer teams, Coach Matthews and Coach Cassidy already have goals set in place for what they hope to achieve for their respective teams. “Well, we had a really good season last year,” Coach Matthews reflected, “in that we were actually seated at number one going into district play, but we lost in the championship game. We did qualify for state but lost the first round to Oviedo, who was the state champion. And our goal, of course, is to try to finish pretty high in the seating for the district. And the next goal is to try and win that district championship game, because that’s gotten away from us for the last several years. We had won, at one time we had six straight titles, but the last several years we have not been able to win the big game.”
Photo credit: Mrs. Springer
Coach Cassidy answered with similar enthusiasm and optimism for the boys’ soccer team. “I don’t know the players all that well, so it’s hard to say what the talent level is. I would probably want the soccer program to be equal to what the rest of the programs are in terms of the football–you know football is such a high profile in the state and state championships and there’s tremendous respect in the school for the football team and their work ethics–so I’d like to copy some of that and incorporate some of that into the soccer program. So basically, raise the program to equal the others. That’s probably a better way to put it.”
Both Coach Matthews and Coach Cassidy have their minds set on the kind of players they are looking for in this upcoming season. “Well, usually, because our varsity has been pretty strong and we’ve already had try-outs when we picked our varsity, they need to be strong with their technique, their skills, they’ve gotta be pretty dedicated to always being at practice and being, you know, ready for the games. We expect them to work hard. Of course, the other thing is they need to behave in the classrooms and academically, you know, to keep their grades up and strive to do the best they can at school and then also at home,” expressed Coach Matthews.
“Well, we’ve had over a hundred players come out so far, freshmen through seniors,” Coach Cassidy shared. “And we’re looking for players that have good technical skill on the ball, and then very good tactical skill with what they do with the ball and their ability to communicate with each other, their fitness level, and also some of their academic responsibilities to themselves and to the school.”
Finally, we asked returning Coach Matthews what he hopes to come from the new team and how he wants the team this year to compare to last year. “Well, last year’s team, we talked all year long about how great they were as far as the way they behaved and how hard they worked and how well they cared for each other. So, really I would want them to be the same way going into this year. The older players taking care of the younger players, and of course again setting goals to win the district championship and then trying to go as far as we can and then into the state playoffs.”
Things seem to be falling into place for both coaches as their programs kick into gear. We hope that this year delivers the success that both Coach Matthews and Coach Cassidy are working toward as our soccer teams begin their new season with pride.