Jason Karasow , our Major Team Head Coach wrote up an extensive review of the recent season. Along with it he asked a few of our players to give their thoughts. These seemed to me to fit better on their own:
We didn’t win the league which is ultimately our goal; however, we did a lot of good things, created a lot of memories, and have strengthened already strong friendships.
The fall was a little disappointing but then we were reminded of how well we can play in the spring. It begs the question of what we can do when we put a full season together; and I think we are just about ready to do so.
Playing soccer at UGH is a great outlet personally to fulfill my desire to compete at a high level and also to blow off some steam with friends. Every season is a success when you think about all the things this team/community has to offer, BUT I think I can speak for the team that we are happy but definitely not satisfied!
-Joe Hansen
I think the season went pretty well and our standing in the league is a reflection of that. As with all things, there’s room for improvement, but we stayed together throughout every game and always managed to do it with a smile. Ever since my first game with the team and grabbing drinks after, I knew I made the right decision on who to play for. Looking forward to next year!
-Adam Nork
The majors had high (and reasonable) hopes and expectations for our season. We’ve had a solid and consistent group of guys growing together over the last few years. Many of them have played together since the U23 team coached by Blesi and Karasow. That U23 team is really the core of the majors squad now, and it’s nice to see guys maturing together.
Going into the season, it was reasonable to expect challenging for cups and being competitive in the league. While we didn’t end with silverware, there were a lot of positives. Many guys on the team got to play in their first cup final. Despite losing, the pressure and demand of that game is something that will put dividends for all the young players. For decent parts of the final, we were the better team, and if one or two things went a different way, the result could have been different. There will be no doubt that we can beat anyone in the league and state when we string things together for 90 minutes.
Maybe more impressive than the cup run was the spring form. It’s always hard to get numbers and results when you’re no longer in cups, and the guys took care of business in the spring. Despite the usual spring challenges, parts of it felt professional, showing up and playing near our highest level regardless of the competition. I was proud of the results in the spring and we hit the points total that we aimed for with only one loss and one tie.
Overall, there are good learning experiences from both the fall and spring, cups and league. The team will be prepared to win games next year that we were ready to compete in, but maybe not win, this year. The majors are in a great spot headed into next season.
-Ken Tomczuk
-while we didn’t get to top 3 on the table I think we overcame a lot of challenges as a group and it’s important to take those small victories into next season
– overcame a big time injury bug in the fall. I think through the first 8 or 9 games we didn’t play with a consistent back line and we managed to stay in the hunt
-through all of that we made it all the way to a cup final for the first time in a while and that’s a huge step for the group
-in the spring we went on a big run that helped us stay in the top 4 and I think we showed that we are good enough to break into the top 2 or 3 when we have our guys
-a big thing for me was that even through the all the injuries and flux in the squad I think we are at the point where we have built a core 8-9 guys on our roster that we can always count on
-Gabe Dwyer
