The Rider boys soccer season started a couple weeks ago. The Raiders will play Wichita Falls High School for the last time at 7 p.m. Thursday at the MSU Showcase.
The Rider Chronicle talked to coach Dustin Holly about his key returning players for Rider’s final year, their goals and their upcoming tournaments.
Q: What is something you and your team are looking forward to this season?
A: Really looking forward to the district season. It’s going to be tough this year and we’re really looking forward to getting in there and playing for the district championship and getting into the playoffs and seeing how far we can go.
Q: What are your goals and expectations for this season?
A: Our goal, our main goal right now is a district championship. We finished second last year behind a pretty good Brewer team, but our goal since the first day in August has been to get a district championship and then go on.
Q: Who are some of your key returning players this year?
A: Key returners are Will Alejandro, Rafa Ortiz, Hayden Wherry, Henry Pinson, Taylor Hopson and then Landon Waggoner and Carter Peterson. They’re kind of the big core of our team.
Q: Who are some players that are new to the team that have impressed you?
A: We have four freshmen come in, play super well early on. They’re pretty experienced. They have great knowledge of the game. It’s been fun to kind of watch them grow, and we’re excited to see what they do as we get into district and into bigger games.
Q: What are some big tournaments that y’all have?
A: The Abilene one we had some good West Texas teams, and Abilene’s ranked high in the region kind of like us. So we got to play with them. The MSU Showcase has a lot of real good Region I and Region II teams coming in. We’ll get to play Mount Pleasant. There’s one of the favorites in Region II. John Tyler does well out there and then Old High is a pretty highly ranked team as well.
Q: What have you learned about your team throughout these first couple of games?
A: That we will battle. We’ve been through some ups and downs pretty early. Christmas break is hard because you miss some of your team and all that. But this group, especially this past weekend we battled until the end and that’s something we can grow on as we get ready to get into district.
