With season kicking off , the Akins Soccer feel optimistic about their upcoming games and want to go deep into playoffs.

This year, both girls and boys are showing great improvements and their hopes for a good season are high.

The girls team is being lead this year by Le’Veon Griffin, who is new to coaching soccer although he has coached football and basketball at Akins in previous years. With a new coach, there comes new rules and new formations to understand and fine tune. Preseason was focused on bringing the team members together and building trust among the players.

“I believe the pre-season games helped us bring the team together and letting us get comfortable with our formations,” said midfielder Yazmin Lopez.

Players said they are planning for a good season by communicat- ing on the eld and strengthening the bonds between them.

“I think we have a lot of potential this season, and I hope it’s gonna be a good season,” left back Summer Shield said.

To have a good team, it must start by getting to know each other and getting to know how the other girls play on the eld. It comes down to all the girls giving it their all and knowing that they tried their best.

Coach Griffin knows that there is improvement being show and feels optimistic about the team when it comes to working as a team.

“I’m really proud of the hard work we’re putting in as a team and I can see improvement with each game,” Griffin said.

Akins Boys soccer started preseason winning tournaments and getting back to back wins with only 4 losses in a total of 16 games. e whole team seems to be feeling con dent about season starting o and they showed it by winning the rst district game 5-1 against San Marcos.

“I believe it will be the best season of my four years at Akins… i  just really hope we make it far past district” said Jared Beteta. Beteta went on to say how they have a very strong backline and in the middle there is very talented players suck as the twins, Romario and Marcos Lopez.

“Our goal keepers Adrian and Andre are always trusted in that net… and we have very agile players who are able to put that ball into the back of the net,”Beteta said.

ere is also kids on the team that believe pre-season doesn’t give the team enough time to prepare for season but it may seem as a way of getting ready for a better team when its time to face challenging teams.

“Preseason was really good, not enough challenging teams but a good warm up, its gonna be a good season .. my teammates are really supportive on and o the eld and we have trust for each other,” junior Jose Orozco said.

The team suffered a loss on Friday, February 2 vs the Anderson Trojans with a score of 3-0 and having some keyplayers out. Monday, February 5th the varsity team tied Del Valle with a score of 1-1, and with an overall record of 13(W)-7(D)- 1(L), the district record is 5-3-1.