Sophomore Douglas Oliveira Do Nascimento running after the ball. Photo taken by Abhishek Rana.
As the fall sports come to close, the Malden High School boys soccer team has finally come to close with the record of 7-9-3. The team is lead by junior captain Patrick Pereira. The team has participated very actively in every game. The season was inaugurated with the game against East Boston.
The team is coached by MHS English teacher Jeremiah Smith. This is the seventeenth year of coaching for Smith in his high school coaching career.
This year’s team had a bunch of the new, young players. Smith mentioned that one of the challenges for this season was “integrating so many new players into the team.”
Senior Germano Fidelis stated how “it [was] challenging playing for the first time on the varsity team.”
The new players feel proud to be on varsity team. Junior Eric Toh stated that it feels good to be part of the varsity team, since “[he felt] like [he was] playing with lot more purpose than when [he was] just [on the] JV or freshmen [team].”
Although the players have a hard time balancing school and game, they explain that it helps to relieve a lot of stress.
Despite the hard work and dedication, the MHS soccer team was not able to beat Everett in both their confrontations, but they were able to defeat their greatest rival, Medford, with a score of score of 4-3 at their home conference game. Though, the second time around the Golden Tornadoes lost the away game against the Mustangs with a score of 1-0.
As a result they could not make it to the state tournament this year, but look forward to trying to go back to states next season.
