As we get ready for our first regular season game tonight, I just want to take a moment to wrap up some thoughts from the preseason. It all goes by so fast, and the regular season will be over before we know it, so it's important to take a breather and reflect on where we stand right now.
JV
Unfortunately I haven't been able to be as involved with the JV teams as I would have liked during this year's preseason. I feel like I have been playing catch up with varsity since the first full week when I had to miss some time (it is very easy to get behind!), so I have had to put my efforts into getting up to speed with that group. I want to send out a big thank you to Matt and Max (and also a big shoutout to Diego d'Angelo as well!) for keeping the guys going while Brian and I had to tend to some personal matters. The reports from the JV groups have been very positive as I hear they are working hard and have had great attitudes in training. I know JV Red is chomping at the bit to play another game and they have circled their first game on the calendar against Henry Clay on August 22. JV Navy had a very tough outing against St. X on Saturday at Collins, but as I told them after the game, that isn't the typical JV team they will see this year. St. X is one of those few unique programs in the state that rarely brings up young players to varsity, so their JV teams are always very strong. This has been the case there since I was kicking it around in Louisville, and getting beat up by their freshman and JV teams. At a school like X, the typical pattern for an individual player is to play on the freshman team as a freshman, JV as a sophomore, varsity as a junior and senior, but probably not seeing very many minutes until senior year. There is so much competition within the program with such large numbers which is why they have had so much sustained success. Combine this with our young JV team this year, and it was a big challenge (especially physically) for our Navy group as they saw individual athleticism and collective pressure that they just haven't been used to. I liked their effort though as they kept playing very hard no matter the scoreline. It should be a great learning lesson going forward in just how that group needs to play (avoiding a physical competition - letting the ball do the work!) in order to have success against higher level teams. I know that will just motivate them tonight when they hit the field again.
VARSITY
I am very pleased with where we are right now with the varsity team. Of course there is plenty to work on, but a lot of the inner team dynamics that become the foundation of the team are progressing in a very positive way. We are building chemistry both on the field and personally. Leaders are emerging and they are committed to taking on that responsibility. While this group is not as close off the field from top to bottom as maybe the teams of the past couple of years, there is more of a business like approach to training and games. Sometimes that great off the field chemistry in the past could be our biggest distractor, and we haven't noticed that being as much of an issue this year. They are working hard, and when it's time to train, they are ready to train. Saturday's game against St. X should be a confidence builder for this group. While it was truly a preseason game and it looked that way from both sides, X will be a top 5 team all season long and our guys were right there with them all game. I am not sure we will see a better opponent in the Lexington area and don't be fooled by their mass substitutions. St. X often goes 20 deep with players at the end of that 20 who would see major minutes/roles at other programs. They can all play. We are still figuring out roles, how we want to play, and we have a lot of work to do on our organization, so we will be focusing on each this week as we head into our first 4 regular season games. In watching back game film from Saturday, a lot of the things we need to tighten up are what we as coaches would consider minor as they will improve in time and with work. Major issues are those that are tough to fix and none of these really stood out to us after the weekend. We feel confident that if we tackle a lot of the small things, it will produce big things on the game field.
I am excited about this week's games as we should see tough competition all week. It will show us even more where we stand and the areas we really need to work on right away. The entire season is a process (a fast process!) and each part of the season is a different step in that process. Preseason to me is about sharpening our technical ability, improving fitness (very happy with the varsity 2 mile times on Friday), and starting to figure out roles and how we want to play. We build off each game (BGSG, preseason game 1, and preseason game 2) to have a plan for the first week of the regular season. Unfortunately we missed out on one of our preseason games (which was important) so we may be a step behind where we would normally be. That doesn't really concern me, but it just means we might have a few more questions going into this week's games than we might otherwise. They will be answered quickly though! The next step is to use this week to work towards the Purples Classic, and then be as prepared as possible for our district games in September. It is important we live in the moment and don't rush through any of the process.
I just want to remind everyone that game management with varsity will be a bit different going into the regular season. Of course we are still working on improving, but now game performance and match ups are a much bigger factor. While all of the guys saw time on Saturday against St. X (with who we see at this time as the main rotation guys playing the majority of the first 65-70 minutes), this will not be the case during the regular season. The normal game rotation will be around 15-16 players which means on a team of 25 players, with 22 full time varsity players, there will be several with very limited minutes or no time depending on the game. These guys still have very important roles though, as we have communicated to them, so it's important to team success that they stay positive, supportive, and ready to go.
On a final note, congratulations to senior Nick SirLouis and junior Max Nusbacher who were selected varsity team captains for this season. We are looking forward to getting it going tonight against Montgomery County!
#strengthinunity #weoverme #positivityconquers #servefirst #anythingeverything #noexcuses
