The men’s and women’s varsity soccer teams are playing in a new league, the WAAC 12. Both teams are preparing for the playoffs that are around the corner in February.

The women’s soccer team has an 8-2-1 overall record so far including non-league games.

“This year we’ve done really well and only lost to O’Dowd, and have been beating teams who were supposed to beat us,” senior Natalie Greening said.

Junior Kesy Platt said that the teams in their league aren’t too challenging, but the teams in the upper bracket will be much more competitive.

“This year we changed our formation to a 4-3-3 and it has really helped us because we have a lot of fast players and can use the formation to the fullest advantage possible,” Greening said.

This formation has four defenders, three midfielders in a triangle shape with the point right behind the forwards, and three forwards.

Over the two-week winter break, the team had 6 practices in total.

“In the past years after winter break we didn’t do so well, but this year we have been doing a lot better and our fitness level seems about the same,” Greening said.

The team is preparing for the playoffs and NCS in February.

“Staying strong from the first whistle to the last, and staying focused from the start of warm ups to the end of each game will help us get far,” Platt said.

Junior Claire Lim said that the team needs to improve on their communication and movement off the ball in order to succeed.

The new league that the Men’s team plays in has proved to be quite challenging, as they are 2-8 in league and will need to see great improvements to have a shot at the playoffs.

“We play a lot of difficult teams and we generally aren’t on the same level as them,” senior Alex Beisner said.

Senior Ian Collins said that every game has been a struggle and there are no weak teams in their league anymore. The two-week break for the winter holidays affected the men’s varsity soccer team because the team had so few practices.

“The break has definitely been a problem for us because players got out of shape and that set the team chemistry back a couple of steps,” Beisner said.

As the playoffs and NCS are nearing, the Men’s soccer team players are thinking about ways to improve themselves.

“Our players need to be a little more athletic and the team as a whole also needs to become technically better. If we work on these things we may have a chance for our team to get into the playoffs and NCS,” junior Matt Baringer said.

Collins said that making playoffs will be tough, but it can be done if they beat some of the teams that are D1 or D2.