Soccer season is finally here. This past week was tryouts for the 2016-2017 year. As many as 80 students tried out this year but only about 50 made it onto the teams. Soccer tryouts are always the biggest tryouts of the year.

Everyone’s goal is to make the Clements Varsity soccer team but it’s easier said than done. Tryouts were Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The first day, everyone was divided by grades and did drills that combined 1v1’s, shooting on goal, defending, and just showing your skills off. After an hour of all of the 1v1 drills, everyone headed into a scrimmage for the coaches to see what the players could do on the actual field in a game situation.

On day 2, practice started very intensely. Everyone was playing their best to show the coaches what the have. It was a very rainy afternoon so the conditions made the game hard to play, everyone was slipping and sliding so it was important to keep your cool. The practice ended at 5:00 p.m. Everyone was extremely tired.

Day 3 was the last day and everyone was very nervous. Today was the day where the coaches said who was on the team and who wasn’t. That day was just a scrimmage the whole time. This scrimmage wasn’t just testing how the game was played but also the physical and mental capabilities of the players. After the game everyone huddled around the coaches to hear who made what team. Many people were extremely happy from the results but others were very sad. The varsity for this year has the following players, Ahmad El-Saddi, Ryan Gonzalez, Malek Elissa, Santiago Diaz, Danny Coronado, Johann Fitch, Chase Peoples, Jonathan Boothe, Brett Gonzalez, Yousef Swielam, Ani Thakur, Ryan Namani, Marcel Ghizonni, and Daniel Sotillo.

Everyone believes that this year will be a great year for Clements soccer with great and wonderful memories to come.