Tracy’s varsity boys’ soccer team has high expectations for the season. With strong dedication and cooperation that has been shown, first place seems achievable.

With a 7-2 overall win record, the team believes that they have a chance at winning the league title. This is an improvement from last year where they had a multitude of ties that cost them a shot at the championships.

“Last year we tied six games, this year we have not tied any games,” coach Phil Kalis said.

Kalis is not the only person noticing this improvement though, athletes that are on the team have seen it also.

“Last year we had a good team, but we couldn’t finish out our chances like we are this year. We’re just a lot stronger and more developed as a team,” senior Lorenzo Gonzalez said.

Kalis said that the goals that the team is scoring have made a difference in the end results of the game.

“We seem to be scoring more goals this year, which means fewer ties,” Kalis said.

Sophomore Israel Olivares is currently the top scorer with 11 goals. He has been on varsity since he began attending Tracy High School freshman year.

With one of the three captains, senior Todd Hoffman, out with a broken right leg, it was expected that some would lose hope, but this was not the case. In fact, it appears that the team is working harder at being a solid unit on the field.

“The team is doing better at working together. At first, it was not the best, but now it is okay,” team captain

The team unit as a whole has brought an improvement from the placement in the league last year with second place with Tokay and has a state ranking of 26 according to maxpreps.com.

This season, both loses have had the score of 2-1, which shows that the defense is doing very well handling the ball and keeping it out of the back field. With dedication to the all aspects surrounding soccer, the team has bright hopes for the end of the season.

“I think that the captains, coach Kalis, and I expect to win league,” Peterson said.