As fall sports begin the season, the men’s soccer program gears up with a new team, new coach and new goals. Starting this year, Special Education teacher Jason Berg will be coaching the men’s soccer team. While sharing a common interest in Special Education, Principal Dan Serrano believes that this new coach will be a beneficial investment for the program.

“He’s new, he’s experienced, but he’s a teacher on campus. It’s really hard to be a head coach when you’re not on campus,” Serrano said, “but he has experience coaching high school at Dobson and he’s in the club scene. I think he’s going to do well.”

Returning player and senior Cole Stewart is looking forward to a change of pace in which the team is planning on “tightening everything up, locking down and getting to work.”

“This year we have three, maybe four seniors on the team so there’s going to be a lot of leadership coming downwards from the seniors and then we need  a lot of the younger guys to step up into the roles we lost last year,” Stewart said.

The team is comprised of a mix of sophomores and juniors, one freshman, and only five seniors. With much of last season’s players being graduated, learning to work cohesively is essential to making strides for a top ten state ranking this year.

“It could help in some ways, the younger guys don’t know what it’s like to play on a varsity, so they don’t know the pace of the game,  but what’s different is that they won’t feel the pressure of playing on varsity. So there’s advantages and disadvantages to having a younger team.

First year Head Soccer Coach Jason Berg is setting the tone for the future competitions by maintaining a mentality of approaching each year expecting to top the last year.

“I think we are young, which can be a strength looking long term but those young players haven’t seen the speed and physicality of varsity which can be a weakness,” Berg said.

Future competitors such as state champions Desert Vista and state runner up Brophy are huge opponents in the upcoming season. To start things off, the team will be competing away at Williams Field on Saturday, Dec. 1.

Berg looks forward to coaching the team because of the great student-athlete role models and the drive to compete.

“The potential in this group is amazing only time will tell if they can reach their aspirations,” Berg said.