Starting up with their usual momentum, the Pine Crest Boys Soccer Team, or PCFC, is attacking this season with great determination and a will to win. Last year, the team lost several key players and had been looking to replace them the beginning of the season. Luckily this year, PCFC was able to be find some new additions and add Jordan Gershman, Billy Roy, Gaurish Gwalani, Grant Fitzgerald, George Goguisheli, AJ Felberbaum, as well as goalkeepers Steven Goldberg and Nick Schaffer to the squad. With half the lineup completely new to the team, Head Coach Miguel Martin will have to use different tactics and ideas to move this team in the right direction. After asking the coach on his thoughts for the season, his response was simple. He said, “We are a young team with a lot of new players playing at the varsity level. It will take great discipline and correction of mistakes for us to have a good year.” After a week with two losses to both American Heritage and Calvary Christian, both 1-0 losses within the Panthers grasps, there were in fact several mistakes to correct. The last day of that week, the team sat down together to discuss these team and individual errors.  I asked Jonathon Bell, co-captain of the Varsity squad, his own thoughts about moving forward, and he replied with very much the same saying, “We are still working out some of the beginning of the season problems, but I think we will gain our chemistry as a group and really come together as the season goes on. I’m very excited to see what the future holds for the soccer team, and I’m confident that this team will be going places this year.” If the team is anywhere close to where it was in the past, they are surely capable since they’ve had success in the last two years going to the District Semi-Finals and Regional Finals the year before. However, it will take a lot of effort from the PCFC squad,  to go through one of the toughest districts in the state including nationally ranked American Heritage, North Broward, and St. Andrews. The team will need to step up its game and perhaps look for some of the more skilled veteran players to step up and put the team on their back. If you find yourself at one of the games, you might want to keep your eyes on these veterans for perhaps a moment of soccer magic. Players such as, Senior Captains Alex Britton, and Jonathon Bell, Mark Simpson and Mark Peicher,  Juniors Brandon Danzansky, Mathew Wagner, and Rahul Benda, or even Sophomores, Max Krieg, Jack Marchetto and Ryan Driscoll. Combined, these players have a total of seven goals and many more assists. But as Coach Miguel has stressed before, the problems are with team as a unit and a correction of some “interesting decisions” is what would allow PCFC to gain the strength needed to carry them past what anyone would’ve believed. So make sure to head out to Best Field on game nights to support the boys and this year’s run for success!