Varsity Boys Soccer fell to Homestead High School, one of the toughest teams in the league, 5-3 on Wednesday, Nov. 26. In the first half, MVHS’s defense struggled, allowing HHS to score three goals. However, in the last 15 minutes of the game, MVHS was able to up their offense and score two goals by switching one of their defenders with an offensive striker, scoring 3 points in the last 10 minutes of the game.
According to head coach Pancho Tzanko, MVHS had only 15 players in this game, compared to the usual roster of 27 players, which led to player fatigue due to a lack of substitutions. Despite this setback, Pancho is very proud of the players in this game and is looking forward to the rest of the season.
“This is a very good start to the season,” Pancho said. “I try not to be too harsh with the people who made the mistakes, so they get motivated and move on to the next play. But now, we have to sit down and analyze what happened to fix some issues we have. We’ll learn from those mistakes, and our team is going to become much better.”
Junior and stacking midfielder Lewly Tzankov comments that the team struggled with defense during the beginning of the game, which led to a 0-4 score initially. However, he adds that the team has been strenuously training, viewing this season as a major improvement from last year. He notes that despite the loss, their efforts will eventually come into fruition.
“As a team, we’ve been doing a lot of fitness, and we’ve been really serious about how we’re coming into the season,” Lewly said. “Although we started on a loss, we still have a lot to build on. Given how hard we work in training, I know it will eventually pay off during the season games, and we will therefore start getting the results.”
Pancho comments that the team is working towards the CCS playoffs; CCS only counts the last 18 games of the season, which requires the whole team’s collaboration to qualify for the the cutoff. Pancho adds that he’s especially proud of his players as he’s sure that they will improve greatly over the course of the season.
“That’s why I made this game the first game of the season — because it doesn’t count towards the CCS playoffs,” Pancho said. “We learn now, so later on, it’s not so difficult. But we also learn to fix the mistakes we make, and the team is going to become much better later on.”
As a team player who strongly believes in his teammates’ potential, Lewly adds that the team has much potential for the future. He also hopes that the loss they experienced in this game does not hinder their efforts for the coming games, as those games are more important for qualifying in CCS.
“We still have a lot to work on, but we also have shown a lot of skill throughout the game,” Lewly said. “It’s important that we don’t keep our heads down and we just keep moving forward for our game on Monday.”
Watch a recording of MVHS vs. Homestead High School’s 2024-2025 game here:
