Clarke Central High School boys varsity soccer players run through warm-ups in practice on Feb. 17. Senior Tato Felix feels that his team will win against their next opponent, Madison County, if they play hard. “I guess we should just work hard and play how we usually play. I think we will (win),” Felix said. Photo by Hannah Gale.
By ZOE PETERSON – Sports Editor
The Clarke Central High School boy varsity soccer team prepares for their second game of the season against Madison County.
The Clarke Central High School varsity boys soccer team (1-0-0) is preparing for their second regular season game at Madison County High School (1-0-1) on Friday, Feb. 19 at 7:30 p.m.
As the high school soccer season is officially underway, senior centerback Tato Felix feels that there are a few things his team needs to work on for their upcoming game against Madison County High School.
“I guess with the outside wings, (we need to improve on) getting more crosses in and we also need to work on the defense, like playing the ball out from the back a little better,” Felix said. “We just need to be more organized.”
In order to prepare for the game, varsity boys head coach Chris Aiken and the players have begun designing some new plays that they plan to put into action against Madison County.
“We brought another player up to varsity from JV who has a long throw in so we’ve been incorporating some long throw in plays that we’re gonna implement on Friday and see how they work in a live game setting,” Aiken said.
Because Madison County is not a region opponent for CCHS, the game does not count towards playoff placement. This allows it to act as an experimental game and help prepare the team for region games.
“These non-region games are really important so that we can see how the long throw in plays work, we can see how getting the wings involved works and you can experiment with different things to get prepared for Apalachee and Gainesville in a few weeks,” Aiken said.
According to Aiken, if the team maintains a strong back line and plays hard throughout the entire game, Central will come out on top.
“A key to the game is obviously to play hard defense the entire game and just to play for the whole game length,” Aiken said. “You gotta have that killer mentality from the start of the game to the time it ends…so you have to practice and play as if you were 0-0 into the last minute.”
