It’s the start of the 2017-2018 school year and while most students will be hitting the books, the boys soccer team will be hitting the turf.

Led by seniors Logan Conway and Kyle Bogado, the squad, under head coach Eric Puma’s guidance, is enthusiastic about this season. Coming off a 2-10-1 record last season, there is a lot of room for improvement and staying competitive is being heavily stressed. Despite losing key starters from last season, the team is also welcoming 15 new players, all with potential to make big contributions.

“The whole team has been training hard this summer, and ready to go hard on the turf,” junior goalkeeper Jack Renz said.

Coach Puma has made it clear through his tough, but constructive coaching methods, that if every player puts forth his best effort, the amount of losses will drop and will be less damaging to players.

Despite starting this season with three losses, most recently, the Raiders took the W against Phillipsburg in a thriller. Junior striker Justin Dominique scored the game winning goal in the 89th minute.

“The game was tough but we stuck to what we knew, and it paid off,” Dominique said. “We have had a couple of tough losses already and I had to make sure this wouldn’t be another one.”

This win boosted the team’s spirits and with this newfound morale, the Raiders are looking forward to taking their game to a heightened level.

With a young team, creating good chemistry can be difficult but as more and more time is spent working and playing together, the team will continue to grow and gel.

The main goal for the team this year is to be competitive in the state and county tournaments, something that has proved to be a challenge in previous years. But, with so much talent on the team this year is already proving to be different.