Local high school boys soccer teams are excited about the new season

From wanting to consistently compete for district championships to reestablishing their programs while growing and developing, the boys soccer teams have lofty goals this season.

The College Station Cougars used to have the goal of just making it to the playoffs and winning a game. Last season’s team that went 12-8-3 overall and 8-5-3 in district play did just that, and now the ante’s been upped.

“Now we want to compete for a district championship,” College Station head coach Chad Peevey said. “That’s kind of our next step as a program this year and going forward, to always be within those points to win a district championship.”

The Cougars have started this season on the right track at 2-1-1. Peevey says the Cougars are still figuring things out as the team has to replace 14 seniors from last season’s squad.

So far through the first four matches, the Cougars have been taking care of business by committee and it’s been working out. College Station is prioritizing nondistrict as a time to develop and iron things out before getting into District 21-5A play.

“We’ve had a lot of our young guys step up and even some of our juniors, who this is their first year on varsity,” Peevey said. “They’re kind of finding their role on the team whether that be starting or coming off the bench and really providing a spark. I would say the whole group right now … they’re still doing a good job and they’re competing for starting spots right now.”

The Cougars will host Joshua at 3:30 pm Thursday at Cougar Field.

The Bryan Vikings are another young team figuring things out to start the season.

The Vikings were young last year with three freshmen and a multitude of sophomores in the starting lineup. Still, they finished with an 8-3-7 overall record and a 6-2-6 record in district play, just missing the playoffs.

Head coach Carlos Luna says the experienced players who are bringing back from last year should help the Vikings.

“The advantage to this season is that we have nine returning starters,” Luna said. “That’s the plan for this year, having nine returning starters that can show growth on the field and perform better than we did last year. From what I’ve seen so far, it has been a lot of improvement, especially from our juniors who were sophomores last year.”

That early improvement has shown as Bryan has started the year 6-0. Luna says the Vikings have been mostly playing smaller schools to help with the development of the younger guys as they’ll have to be ready for Class 6A action in the district.

The Vikings do have some upperclassmen and a big contributor for them has been senior captain Alex Vasilakis. The three-year letterman has been a captain since his sophomore season.

“He is basically our main guy right there,” Luna said. “He holds everyone accountable as a leader and has stepped up to the challenge of being a captain. He’s one that’s really, really hard to replace.”

Along with Vasilakis, Luna highlighted junior Skrivanek Flores, who is the team’s leading scorer, senior Kelvin Zelaya and junior Yexon Diaz. He admits that he could talk about everyone on his roster as they all mean a lot to the program.

The Vikings will host Westwood at 5 pm Thursday at Merrill Green Stadium.

For new Rudder head coach Jim Davis, his love of soccer came from his hometown.

“My home is Nacogdoches, and it’s hard to think of in the middle of deep East Texas that there’s a place that loves soccer, but everybody knows Clint Dempsey and that’s his hometown,” Davis said. “It’s really wild that there in the middle of deep east football, we also have a little side street that’s very passionate about soccer. It’s always just been natural. You play football year round. It’s like me growing up: You played football in the fall and football in the spring. One football is round and the other one’s pointed.”

That love of both sports has carried over into coaching as he’s not only an assistant on the football staff at Rudder but also taking over the boys soccer team. Last season, the Rangers went 2-13-5 overall and 1-11-4 in district play.

Davis is no stranger to building teams as he started the soccer program at Diboll and has also coached at Silsbee. Davis helped Silsbee win its first playoff game.

“We want to show positive growth from game to game and from practice to practice,” Davis said of his goals this season. “We have some talented athletes, and we want to try and translate success in practice to success on the field.”

The Rangers will open their season against Killeen Shoemaker at 1 pm Thursday at Merrill Green Stadium.

Similar to College Station and Bryan, A&M Consolidated has had a solid start to the season and hopes to keep it going.

The Tigers went 8-6-5 overall and 8-5-5 in district last year, barely missing the playoffs as they finished fifth. The last two seasons have seen Consol’s district championship streak come to an end as the Tigers won the district from 2015-19 before COVID-19 and last season’s fifth place finish.

Through their two games this season, the Tigers have been successful.

Consol is off to a 3-0 start after wins against Spring Westfield, St. Louis Catholic and Alief Taylor last week as they finished tied for first in the Kilt Cup in The Woodlands. Senior midfielder Bryce Marianno and junior Alan Kocmoud had two goals each during the tournament.

The Tigers will host their first home game of the season at 6 pm Thursday against Fort Bend Clements at Tigerland Stadium.