By Matt Smith and Josie Anzalone

On Fri., March 29 the Atlantic Boys Soccer team traveled to Stuart for a scrimmage. The game ended 2-2 with goals from juniors Matt Smith and Zach Brooks.

Based on the game, senior Dillion Cox feels they can go as far as they want to.

Freshman Kolton Carey said, “I think the season looks pretty good. We progress a little at a time and we get better as a team. We can beat every team we face.”

According to some of the players they have quite a few things to work on before their first game. Some of these things include: conditioning, passing (distribution of the ball) and defense (working up close getting in their face). The top team goal from a majority of the players is to make it to the state tournament. Junior Ryan Hawkins’ goal for this season is to set the all time record for assists for Atlantic. Brooks is setting his goal for scoring his first ever varsity goal as  a defender.

“Soccer is a matter of life and death. Except more important.” said Brooks.

Some good and some bad’s that some players did. Cox said “going into his first game I had a lot of nerves was his bad thing and his good thing was I communicated well.” Kolten Carey said a good thing he got to do was step on the Varsity field and “my bad thing was not marking up on people when there was a throw in or corner kick that West Central Valley had.” Brooks said one of the good things he did was score one of the two goals in the game and one thing he wanted to improve was his playing with the ball too much instead of passing it. Ryan Hawkins said “my bad thing was my hair looked terrible and my good thing was that i communicated well.”

As the game went along the team got better. They improved on their passing but it wasn’t a major gain like everyone wanted. Their communication was something that needed to grow before playing their next game.

After the scrimmage the varsity lineup wasn’t set. There are still open spots and there could be all year. They may not find the right place for everyone til play-off time.