By Katherine Camberg

This season while I attended multiple varsity soccer games, I noticed a bunch of changes from last year. First of all, the team is larger this year and they have many new players. The team has its fair share of freshman players, but they also have several upperclassmen who decided to try soccer for the first time this year. They also have a number of talented club players who enrich the team.

One of these club players is freshman Oliver Ricken. He has played soccer since he was three, and he currently plays club soccer. He is the TPA varsity goalie and is extremely talented. He describes goalie as a challenging position but he loves playing goal and loves the leadership role that comes with it. As goalie, you can see the whole field and can help guide the team and point out holes in the defense.

This is his first year playing on the high school team for TPA and he has proven himself to be a valuable member of the team. Oliver says that he likes how Coach Potter pushes the team to improve and he says that the team has improved a lot this season. Although this year’s post-season ended on Friday with a disappointing but hard-fought 0-1 loss to NFL YET, Oliver is looking forward to next season. He also hopes in the future to play soccer in college.

The soccer season will leave its players with many fond memories. Sam DiCaro cites some of his favorite memories from the season: “One of the funniest things from the season was when Josh Hudson did his octopus dance move while the other team was taking a penalty kick. The guy missed the PK because he was laughing so hard. I also loved Coach Potter’s on-trend Adidas Capri pants.”

The boys had lots of fun this season, but played seriously on the field.