Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Whitewater soccer team finishes first year on winning note

When a new school is trying to establish their athletic programs, coaches are looking for solid efforts from their players and signs of encouragement in practice and in games. A coach looks for moments to build on and hopes that by the end of the inaugural season there are more and more of those moments coming. Coach Shane Pulliam saw plenty of those moments throught Whitewater High School’s first soccer season as the team exceeded expectations and finished 11-3-2.

“When people asked me before the season I thought that we would have a winning season more like 9-7,” said Pulliam. “I couldn’t be more pleased. The players did everything I asked of them and more this year.”

The Wildcats were only shutout three times during the season. They scored 53 goals and gave up 17, while posting seven shutouts in 16 games. Jonathan Collier led the team in scoring with 20 goals, while Josh Adair added 10 and Matt McCrite added 7.

“We scored in the run of play, on corners, set pieces and even drew 11 penalty kicks this year. That is almost unheard of,” stated Pulliam. “We were a threat everywhere and a lot of people helped to keep it that way.”

Puliam stated that he could name a lot of people who helped make this season special both offensively and defensively, citing the play of players like Carlos Iturbe at outside back, Cody Haralson at defensive midfield, Robert Bodron on the outside midfield, and Brandon Davis at forward. He also mentioned players like Jordan Cooper and Ryan Madura who helped get those guys ready every game. Pulliam also gave a lot of credit to the development of Kenny Cowart who had never played keeper at any level prior to the season.

“The other players on the team who came everyday to practice with the attitude of ‘I'm going to get better today, I'm going to make my team better by my effort in practice’ were almost common place everyday,” said Pulliam. “They are the unsung heroes of this season coming to practice everyday and just working to get better, to get the team better, to help the program get better. They really answered the challenge this year. I really hated to see the season end and look forward to next season and the challenge of stepping into varsity.”