We have graduated 21 players in two years (plus one additional foreign exchange student = 22). I am proud to say that of that group that four are currently playing collegiate soccer while seven others had opportunities to continue to play in college.
However, much in part to the success of these strong classes, we did not have many freshmen and sophomores playing in 2001-02 and it's caught up with us. Kids that played soccer and could not make varsity at that time, simply gave it up or took up other sports.
Also, of the four returning players from last year that we were counting on contributing leadership and adding their valuable match experience, only two are with us due to personal reasons for the ones that have quit.
So in short, we have turned to our youth (9-10 freshmen per match) and inexperience (3 sophomores / 1 that has played varsity, 1 JV, 1 that has never played) & (7 juniors / 2 that have played varsity, 4 JV, 1 has never played) to build towards getting better each day/week/month and hopefully challenge for the region in April.
The brightest side of all of this is that we dressed 20 players last night and every one of them will be back next year! This bodes well for the future, but certainly we are working towards winning THIS year!!!