With half the district season over and playoffs coming around the corner, Coppell boys soccer still has not gotten to their full potential.

With four more games left until the season is over, Coppell has many crucial games including a Feb. 26 game against Hebron whom Coppell is tied with for the fourth ranking spot.

“We beat Hebron last time but anything can happen and we just have to go out there and starting scoring more,” senior captain Jordan Elgin said.

Coppell has had a problem with scoring goals this year. Last year, the team scored a total of 11 goals in the first half of the district games while this year, Coppell has only scored four.

 “This is definitely not how we wanted to start the district season and now this puts more pressure on the team for the next few games,” senior captain Colton Reese said.

After last week, the standings place Flower Mound Marcus in first, Southlake Carroll in second, Flower Mound in third and Hebron and Coppell tied for fourth. All of the games have been very close and no one has a guaranteed playoff spot yet.

“This has always been a tough district especially with all the teams playing so close this year,” senior Brandon Donahue said. “It’s now down to just one goal that becomes the deciding factor.”

All the games Coppell has played have been close and usually the difference between a win and a loss is just one goal. District 6-5A is one of the most competitive districts in the state. Due to the difficulty, the top four teams in District 6-5A get to go to playoffs. Last year, the playoff qualifiers from 6-5A went 4-0 in the first round.

After Hebron, Coppell still has Marcus, Lewisville and Flower Mound to play again, with one of the three games at home. Coppell’s record with these teams was one loss and two tied games. There are no shoot outs until the playoff rounds.

“We need to score,” boys varsity coach Shane Bybee said. “In most games, we’re creating chances, but getting very few shots on goal.”

While Coppell’s defense is very strong only giving the other teams very few chances on goal, the offense has been falling behind. Offense has had many chances but without the aggressiveness and key shooters that the team had last year, they have not been able to take advantage of the possibilities.

One of the tied games Coppell had this season will be at home this next round which should give Coppell the advantage. It is against Lewisville on March 9, which is also Senior Night.

“Our goal is just to make the playoff round and we are just going to have to work hard and score more these next couple games to get us there,” senior Eric Oesch said.  

Although Coppell is tied for fourth place right now, the team still has a chance to move up to second place in the district by season’ end. There are still four more games to play and anything is possible.

Coppell High School has its fair share of T-shirts, from class shirts to rivalry game shirts, and even to fundraiser shirts. Even if the game or fundraisers are repeats, the designs are often different.

One T-shirt that is reliable to look the same every year is the soccer ball fan T-shirt produced by the boys soccer team.

“The shirt first came out my freshman year and I got one all four years I was there,” CHS 2007graduate Matt Garcia said. “Even though I don’t go to the school anymore, I still find a way to get my hands on one of the shirts.”

The soccer ball fan t-shirt started with the CHS class of 2005. Every year, each sports team comes up with a unique slogan and shirt idea for that year. Soccer players like class of 2005 graduates Jon Ridley and Eric Defrietas came up with the soccer ball shirt, and it stuck as the design from then on.

“It’s a real cool tradition and I think the nicknames are the best part because the team mainly knows the joke behind them and no one else has a clue,” senior Jordan Elgin said.

The design is passed down from the last senior captain to the next senior captain who will be in charge of picking the shirt’s color scheme and sales. This past year, Josh Hayes passed the design to senior captain Colton Reese.

Although the T-shirts say “fan” on them, they are copied from the T-shirts the varsity soccer team wears to school for every home game. This year, the team is wearing bright pink shirts with lime green writing. Each player has their number and nickname on the back.

“The seniors on the team get to pick the nicknames and it’s always a blast to pick them out for each other and the underclassmen,” Reese said.

The color schemes for the fan shirts are always the opposite of what the varsity soccer players have.

“Even though I am part of the Sideline Psychos and we get shirts from that to wear I still love the soccer ball shirts,” senior Kelly Winkle said.

Fan shirts were on pre-sale from Feb. 9 to Feb. 11 and will come in as early as Feb. 19. The money goes into the booster club account.

There will be no extras but if at least 12 or more students want to order more, the Coppell soccer booster club can look into doing another order.

Soccer shirts 2

Senior defender Joey McKillop leaps to head the ball in a game against Jesuit. The Cowboys are up against the district of unprecedented competition and talent this season. Three district teams are ranked in the top 25 nationally. Photo by Tyler Morris

Usually, for people to see the nation’s top teams in soccer compete against each other, they have to make a trip across the country. However, in this circumstance, people only have to travel to District 6-5A matches to see the best.

According to ESPN Rise Fab 50, Coppell moved up 17 spots from last year to being ranked 16^th in the nation this year. While that is very good, Coppell still has to compete against a few top of the teams in the nation before going to playoffs.

“We’ve put a lot of work and practice into the preseason so we’re ready to see it all come together and we expect good things,” senior captain Colton Reese said.

Before district games begin, Coppell must face Dallas Jesuit, who is ranked fourth in the nation. Last year, Jesuit was ranked No. 1 in the nation until the semifinals in playoffs, where it suffered its only loss of the season to the eventual state champions, Plano.

While Jesuit had no losses during the regular season, Coppell tied the Rangers at zero at the beginning of last season. This year, Coppell had a devastating loss to the Rangers with a score of four to zero. Jesuit has always been known to be a tough competitor, but they are not the only highly-ranked team Coppell must face.

“The difficult district is both a blessing and an obstacle,” Coach Shane Bybee said. “If a team makes the playoffs, they’re a good team. Most years they’d go a couple of rounds deep in the playoffs.  The last two years, the third round has meant matchups with an equally tough district match up with someone like Plano or Jesuit. It’s an obstacle because it is tough to make the playoffs, but a blessing because every player has to get into the habit of bringing his best game every night.”

District 6-5A, there are three teams ranked nationally in the top 25. Flower Mound Marcus, ranked No. 1 in the nation. Marcus’ soccer team won the state championship in 2007 and 2008. After losing in the third round of playoffs to Jesuit last year, Marcus plans to reclaim the championship title this year.

“We know Marcus is good,” senior captain Joey McKillop said. “It’s the same kids we have grown up playing with and against.  We know what to expect but it’s still going to be a challenge.”

The other ranked team is Southlake Carroll, who is ranked No. 23. The Dragons have many players returning from last season including two junior forwards Tim Rood and Nicholas Petrovich and juniors Justin Leal and Joe Downey in defense. Coppell and Southlake Carroll split its games last season, both winning at home by one goal.

Coppell faces the Dragons in its first district game of the season on Feb. 5 at Buddy Echols Field. This will be an important game not only for national rankings but also for playoff positioning down the road.

District 6-5A allows four teams to go to playoffs, this group of teams makes this year very difficult for the Cowboys.

 “We’re very difficult to score on,” senior Kyler Hermanski said. “In the first four games and two scrimmages, the only goal we’ve given up was on a penalty kick.”

Goals will be hard to come by against Coppell’s defense. All of the starting defensive players, including the goalie, started for the varsity team last season and have been able to keep the momentum up for this year. Junior Chris Hinze, who was District 6-5A Newcomer of the Year for the 2009 season, is fully prepared to protect Coppell’s goal and allow no team to score.

“There certainly is more pressure than last year because last year we were able to score all the time but this year we are still a strong team and I think we will do great,” Hinze said.

With so many top teams in Coppell’s district and a strong defense, the soccer season will be interesting and will likely come down to the last few minutes of each game this year. Playoffs will start after spring break.

“Besides having one of the hardest districts in the state, I think we will have a good year and make it to playoffs as long as we stay organized,” senior Jaxon Williams said.

 During the first half, Coppell was aggressive and kept the ball most of the time. While had a few chances to score, the ball mainly went passed the goal. Eight minutes into the game, senior captain Jordan Elgin stepped on number 10 Trojan and sprained his ankle. The injury, however, did not stop Elgin from playing the game.

“Trinity is not known to have a good soccer team but they were competitive and a good team to start the season with,” senior Colton Reese said.

While not an exciting first half, things got real interesting after half time. Early in the first half, about 5th minute into the second half junior Jake Garnett kicked the ball over the goalie’s head giving Coppell the first lead of the game. After a short celebration, Trinity got the ball and started moving fast into Cowboy territory. As number 12 player started to head to the goal, senior defensive player Brandon Donahue went to get the ball out of the box and accidently hit the player in the face. While no penalty was called, the Trinity team got real angry and started to show it on the field. After he was escorted off the field, Coppell got the ball and Trinity started to play real aggressive.

While the game was going on, number 12 came back in and went straight for Donahue and tried to start a fight with him. As teammates senior Kyler Hermanski and senior Joey McKillop came to break it up the fight, number 1 ran and hit McKillop hard in the chest and all players started yelling and running to the chaos. After the referees broke up the main fight, they gave red cards to McKillop number 1 and 12. While players 1 and 12 make sense since they were throwing the punches and starting the fight, McKillop was wrongly accused when all he tried to do was break it up.

After things started to settle down, the game started again with 24 minutes left. Many players played a little more cautiously after seeing the referees give out red cards but Coppell stayed aggressive and kept the ball in Trojan territory for most of the 24 minutes. Coppell had about three close goals before their second goal. Reese took the corner kick and made a quick pass to junior Will Simonds who crossed the ball to senior Jeremy Lind who headed it into the goal with 10 minutes left. Guaranteeing the win with that goal, the game quickly finished up giving Coppell their first real win of the season.

“It was definitely an interesting game to start the season but hopefully this win will lead to others,” Elgin said.

Coppell has a tournament in Garland this weekend. They are scheduled to play Mesquite Poteet, Austin Akins, and North Garland on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Depending on the record of those games, the team might play in the semifinals and finals on Saturday.

McKillop’s suspension could either be one to three games depending on the referee and Elgin possibly might not play this weekend’s tournament in order to fully recover for the rest of the season.