Coaches Corner for April 6th: Connor Doyle, Boone Boys Soccer

Joining us on Coach's Corner on KWBG, you're gonna talk some Boone Boys soccer with Connor Doyle. Is he Tori Dors?

Normally about this time I like to say that they're getting ready for that first match, but Connor, you guys jumped in literally right into the deep end with Des Moines Christian back on the 30th, and then the next night you had Greene County.

It was not a lot of time to be practicing. You got right after it, huh? Yeah, we did what we could with the time that we had, but yeah, you're right. We usually have, I don't know, two, two and a half, three weeks of practice before our first game.

It seemed like we got like maybe a week and a half in, and it's always tough starting during spring break because obviously families are going places and we're not going to have everybody at practice.

So it seemed like we maybe had five actual practices with everybody there, but even when once we're back at school, we're usually missing one or two guys and numbers are low this year, so it's kind of tough.

I've been preaching to the guys that we need everybody there so we can kind of build that, just get cohesive and learn how to play together.

So yeah, we only had like five practices, five real practices before our first couple games, but we put our heads down, we got to ask her, the guys gave it their all, and that's all I can ask of them.

Well, we knew after last season, I mean, you don't lose as many seniors as you guys did. You're going to step in this year and just automatically, all right, here we go. And so some youth that's in this year, but that's always exciting to me too, Connor.

I know it's also head scratching and hair pulling out sometimes too, but it's exciting because freshmen, you know, eventually are going to, the lights going to go on, right? It's not like they just started playing soccer yesterday.

I mean, you got some kids that kind of know what they're doing out there. Yeah, definitely. It is tough. It can be, I guess, frustrating more for the guys.

You know, we have some, our captains this year that were pretty good friends with a lot of those seniors last year that are, after the first game, they kind of took it, no, I don't want to say personal, but they were, they're pretty upset with themselves.

And, you know, they kind of felt like they needed to be, they just knew that they had big shoes to fill and they felt the pressure.

And, you know, I get that, but I tried to preach to them, you know, that senior class last year, you know, their freshman year, their sophomore year, their junior year was not pretty. I mean, we had, we struggled, we lost a lot.

So they had to go through a lot of, you know, ups and downs and, you know, we finally put it all together during their senior season. I've been trying to preach that to the guys that, you know, it's not just going to, we're not going to pick up where we left off. And that's okay.

It's not going to be exactly what it was like last season. We're going to have some mistakes. We're going to mess up. We're going to have some good moments too. But it's not always going to be pretty. And that's, that's okay. But we're learning from it.

We only got one senior this year, and that senior it's his first year ever out. So, I mean, we're, we're going to return just about everybody next season, which is, which is good to know. So it's going to be a good learning experience for us, for us this year.

And yeah, a lot of those younger guys, we had a couple, we had a guy from Madrid, one kid from Madrid, that's going to be helping us out. He's been getting some playing time right now. And then we got a couple of guys from Ogden that are also helping us out.

So I do think it's going to be a fun, fun learning experiences here. And yeah, we'll make the changes that we need and we'll just go from there. Well, it looks like you made some pretty good strides too, Connor, from, from game one to game two.

I know that Greene County, you look at the final score, not indicative of how it started. I mean, it was a two zero match for quite a while before Greene County kind of got things going. And I know Des Moines Christian is, you know, predominantly just a really good squad.

I mean, that's a team that always seems to put it together. So I liked the step forward. It looked like you took Connor from one to two and that's what you want to do is get better than you were the day before. Yep, exactly.

And I was a little worried about, you know, how conditioned we were, but only having, you know, five real practices going into, going into those games. But the other guys, again, they just, they kind of put their heads down and got after it.

You know, in my head, I, I just looking at kind of who Greene County had lost from the season four, it seemed like they were returning a lot of players.

And in my head, I was assuming that Greene County was going to be a little bit more powerful than Des Moines Christian, but they're probably right, right up there with them. That would be a good match between those two teams. But, you know, I think we, we, we got after it.

We played a little bit more physical. We changed up our formation a little bit. And the guys adapted well. And yeah, it was a much better game. I thought we, I thought we looked much better, a little more comfortable, less timid, which was, which is big.

So I'm just hoping, yeah, if we can just take that and just get a little bit better each day, we'll be okay by the end of the season.

Well, and you said you had a chance to watch some film too, Connor, which I always think is invaluable, getting a chance to watch what we do instead of coach saying, Hey, you're not in this right spot. Hey, our spacing was not good. Hey, we're not pushing it up field.

I mean, you got a chance to watch this, Connor, and the kids saw it and had to take a lot of that to heart. I really feel like that's going to be huge for, for Carlisle coming up on the night. Absolutely.

And, you know, the kids got to a point where I, I really didn't even need to speak up. I could just, you know, just say, Hey, well, so what do you guys see here? And like, almost all of them instantly and be like, Oh yeah, we're, we're way too bunched up.

You know, we got five, six guys within 10 to 15 yards of each other. And that, that kind of seemed to be our theme, just being out of position, not what we're supposed to be.

So I think a lot of those guys, especially the new ones, we're able to see that it's nice to have a visual and be able to adapt and change. So yeah, I really do think it'll help us for Carlisle. Coach, as always, thank you so much for some time.

Best of luck coming up here on Thursday. And we'll look forward to talking to you again here in a couple of weeks. Sounds good. Thank you, Ryan. You bet. Connor Doyle again, joining us. Boone boys soccer here in coach's corner.