Future looks bright for T-Bird Soccer heading into new season
Warren Younger
T-Birds Soccer is off to a good start after both the Men’s and Women’s team came home with victories against South Mountain in the opening match of the 2014 season.
The Men’s team beat the South Mountain squad by a score of 7-0 while the Women’s team won by a score of 3-0.
“The team is improving everyday,” said MCC Men’s Soccer coach Tim Barmettler.
“The guys are already a tight group, and they work hard for each other.”
Coach Barmettler is in his second year. When asked about what’s different this season than last he responded by saying the team is much younger.
“We have a lot of freshmen this year who have never played in a college soccer game. We will have to continue to get better as we go,” Barmettler said.
Coach Barmettler also says that there are a few players fans should be looking out for.
“We have a number of standout players,” Barmettler said. “Ari Sanchez, Julian Galvan, Brian Perea, among others will help the team in the attack”
“Danny Wichman, Josh Jiminez, Edgar Leyva and Mikey Aguirre will help defend the goal for us, In the midfield, Sam Ciaora and Carlos Fierro have been controlling that area very well.”
Coach Barmetller also added some thoughts on the schedule for the upcoming season.
“Every school in the conference is competitive” Coach Barmettler says, “This creates a brutal schedule for us.”
That brutal schedule includes Yavapai College, the No. 3 ranked team in the nation according to the NJCCA.
Last season the T-birds played Yavapai to a draw and a 4-1 loss.
The other team ranked in the top 10 in the nation that the T-Birds will go up against this season is No. 9 ranked Phoenix College.
No. 18 ranked Arizona Western and No-19 ranked Pima Community College are also on the T-Birds schedule.
However Coach Barmettler isn’t holding back on his goal for the upcoming season.
“The goal is to win the conference and go to nationals,” Barmettler said.
On the Women’s side of things long time coach Andrew Guarneri says that his team still needs improvement but likes where his team is going.
“We look like we haven’t played a real game yet,” Guarneri said. “I think we have a lot of promise but we will have to sharpen up some of the details in order to win games.”
“The future looks bright.”
The T-Birds women’s soccer team finished a disappointing 8-12, which was good for No-7 in the conference but Coach Guarneri has his eyes set for bigger things this season.
“Take one game at a time and get to the playoffs” Guarneri said, “Once we get there then the goals change but we have to focus on taking care of each game and winning each half of soccer.”
When asked if there are any standout players this year Coach Guarneri responded with several.
“ I have a returning captain in Morgan Eddy, who also made first team all-conference last year as a freshman,” Guarneri said.“ I also have Jordan Drake, Hallee Ahler, Alexa Lorentzen, Hannah Kijowski and Danielle Torres
who are key pieces to the success we will have.”
However Guarneri pointed out that everyone on his team is critical to the teams success.
“ To be honest, there isn’t a single player on this team that won’t be important for us if we want to be consistent and win games,” Guarneri said.
The T-Bird Squads look to continue the season on the right foot in the home opener against Arizona Western on August 28.
