As many students head home after a long day of school at Combs, it is the start of a new day of practice for the Boys Varsity Soccer team. They have to run for miles in the Arizona heat and begin numerous drills that not only challenge their skills, but challenge their willpower and character. As players as they all are preparing for the upcoming season ahead.

Leah Moyes returns for her fifth year coaching the Boys’ Varsity Soccer Team and has many goals for this upcoming season and methods to accomplish these goals.

“The type of goals that I prefer to be a priority is progress,” Moyes said. “Every single day I want to see the team individually and collectively making progress and that they see themselves each day.”

With progress comes improvement that Coach Moyes is looking forward to seeing from last season. Despite last season being fairly rough for the Boys’ soccer team, Coach Moyes reflects and remembers positive highlights from that season that she hopes will continue to this year.

“If we were to look at the record alone, it would be considered a losing season. However, I feel as a team the boys were amazing,” Moyes said. “It’s really hard to hold your head up when you lose a lot games yet they still woke up every morning and came out to practice everyday and worked really hard which overall shows true character.”

She was impressed by the number of underclassmen who came out to play in a completely different league. She has high hopes for the newcomers.

“I am hoping that they are coachable. I am hoping that they are willing to learn from the coaches, returning players, and captains,” Moyes said. “And that they see what they need to improve upon by observing from people who do certain actions correctly.”

Returning players also make up a big portion of the team this year. Due to their past experiences being on the team the coach has certain expectations for them.

“Experience and leadership. I want the returning players to set the standard and be an example of what Combs soccer is really about to all the new players,” Moyes said.

Among these returning players are team captains Cameron Armstrong and Hayden Uresti who have goals set for themselves and how they can benefit the team.

“I am trying to get the team prepared for the season as a whole by making sure that everyone stays positive and keeping the team together so that we start this season strong,” Senior Cameron Armstrong said.

“As captain, I plan to be the example and set the standard for the team and lead in warm ups,” Senior Haydon Uresti said

The two captains are just as eager for the new season as the coaches are and have a  few things that they anticipate this is season with the growth of the team.

“We have a lot of new players coming in who have a lot of energy and are not affected by the past years which means that we have a lot of fresh players that could help us raise to a better
team,” Armstrong said.

“Overall just help improve both throughout the year and last year. With this being my last season I wanna play a role in building a team this season so that this program can continue strong in the future,” Uresti said.

You can catch the Varsity soccer team on their next home game against Marcos De Niza on December 7 as they battle for goal!