Boys varsity soccer falls 1–0 to Sequoia after sluggish first half

The boys varsity soccer team fell 1-0 to the Sequoia Cherokees on Friday in a chilly match where neither team seemed to play at its best. The Dons had a sluggish first half, which contained the only goal of the match on a miscommunication between the Dons. However, they picked up in the second, taking more shots on goal and playing stronger defense. Head Coach Greg Markoulakis says, “We’re learning that you have to play consistently [and that] you can’t play one half of a game; you have to play two halves. It was disheartening. We knew that we could beat this team. We were missing three starters today, and one in the central midfield who is a very important player for us.”

With their loss to Sequoia, the Dons are still winless in division play, showing the true difficulty of the Bay Division. Last year, the Dons competed in the Ocean Division, the lower of the two divisions. Markoulakis adds, “The speed of play in Bay, as opposed to Ocean of last year, is much quicker. The intensity level is much higher, so the boys are seeing that, as we competed quite well last year. This year is a little tougher.”

Overall, this season has been rough for the Dons, especially in terms of the injuries that plague the team. Markoulakis says, “Since the first game of the season, we’ve had too many starters missing. They’re starting to come back, but they’re coming back at half speed.”

Although the season is coming to an end, the team still has some goals for the future. Senior defender and vice-captain Steve Gomez agrees, “We just need to work on our communication. We get a little quiet at times. [There is] sometimes a lack of aggression and sometimes a lack of effort. We pick it up, but it needs to start off from the beginning.”

At practice, the team is still building and fixing. Gomez says, “We’re trying out some new partnerships and new formations on the field, which help our communication, and solve our problems with effort. It’s basically just finding the right chemistry, and then going from there.”

Markoulakis adds, “We have to address our finishing, [so] that’s what we’re addressing [in practice] right now.”

The team seems to follow a strange trend, week to week, according to Markoulakis: “In the season, we have two games per week. We play extremely well on Wednesdays, but on Fridays, we have a bit of a letdown normally. So that’s the difficulty we’ve had this season; Wednesdays we put much more of an effort out.”

In theory, the work the team has done on communication this year will not be lost on next year’s team, because this year’s team is so young. Markoulakis says, “We are younger. We lost eight [starting] seniors to graduation last year, and we brought up six sophomores. It bodes well for next year.”

Sophomore midfielder Michael Lanthier adds, “I don’t think it will be a major change, it’ll just be a matter of working together.”

The boys varsity soccer team will close their season with rematches against various members of the PAL Bay Division. The team currently has a (3-4-1) overall record and is (0-2) in league play. The team’s next game is at 3 p.m. against Burlingame on Feb. 7.