Norwich men’s soccer were knocked out from the GNAC tournament by St. Joes College.
“The team found out that winning isn’t easy, it comes from hard work and dedication to your team,” said a team member.
This year was a rebuilding year for Norwich, having brought in 13 freshmen to replace the eight seniors from last year, according to Charles Maxwell, 21, a senior business major from Rochester, N.Y. “Hopefully the games we won and lost will help them to become even better for the years to come.”
“St. Joes had more heart and desire to win the conference than our team;” said Chris Rivet, 21, a senior civil engineer major from Harrisville, R.I. “It seemed that some players on our team cared more about themselves than they did about the team.”
The team’s lack of inexperience made for a difficult season, “we had a lot of inexperience coming for both the freshmen and the upperclassmen who got more playing time this year,” said Zach Blodgett, 20, a junior civil engineer from Troy, N.H.
Losing Jake Yaris, who was a big part in Norwich’s scoring, midway through the season to a shoulder injury was a major blow to the team, according to teammates.
“He was the target player for us in the center forward position,” said Rivet. “He was the player who could make things happen, he could score goals when it was most important.”
“Losing Yaris was hard for us; he was a great player and gave everything he had,” said Maxwell. “Yaris is the type of player that can literally change the course of a game; he can change the mood in the team from negative to positive.”
The pressure to repeat as GNAC champions may have been a little too much for the inexperienced team to handle, according some teammates.
The success of last year’s team, “may have gotten into the heads of many of the players this year,” said Maxwell. “I feel as if some players thought that winning would come easily because of how successful the team was last year and clearly that is not the case.”
The biggest downfall was the lack of commitment this year, said Rivet. “Players would miss practice and not tell the captains or coaches. For the team to be successful next year players need to be committed to the team and want to win.”
“Every game is important and you look to be better every time you go out,” said Blodgett. “That’s something we have to realize by next year if we want to win.”
The team needs to develop bonds between each other and that’s something they will need to do during the off season, according to Maxwell. “They should really focus on team-building activities in order to become a family, which will help them play better as a team.”
“The team will need to prepare for next year by training harder in the off season and come to pre-season next summer with a winning mentality,” said Rivet.