The main thing Coach Brandan Tabeling is looking for from his Trinity Lutheran boys soccer team is match-to-match improvement, and he cautions Cougars fans to have patience.
“It’s disappointing obviously,” Tabeling said following a 5-0 loss to Rising Sun on the Trinity Lutheran campus Saturday morning.
“Nobody wants to lose, or likes to lose or is happy with losing. The thing we’re focusing on with our guys this year is it’s the second game of the season, it’s the third day of the actual season. We don’t expect them to be anywhere near where we’re expecting them to be at in a month and a half, going into October, going into sectionals.”
Neither team could mount a strong offensive attack through the first 10 minutes of the match.
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The Shiners finally scored at 29:16, then made it 2-0 three minutes later.
Andrew Emily had a free kick for Trinity with 15:30 on the clock, but it was stopped by Shiner goalie Matt Martini.
The Shiners added another goal at 10:36 to lead 3-0 at the break.
Rising Sun out-shot Trinity 15-6 in the first half and 27-16 for the match. Bryant Housemyer had two goals for the 2-0 Shiners.
Tabeling said it is going to take time for his players to settle into their offensive positions.
“The great thing about high school soccer, the season starts over, you lose your seniors and you bring in new players and you have to restart from there,” he said. “We lost seven guys last year so we’ve got a lot of guys that are returning, but a lot of guys that are playing new positions or haven’t played before.”
There are only two seniors on Trinity’s 13-man roster.
“We had a couple guys today that really stepped up in new spots, stepped up and played great games for us,” Tabeling said. “It’s good to see that even in the two days we’re improving. The first half was a little rough.
“It seems sometimes our guys are a little slow to get started. I don’t know if at halftime they like getting yelled at and in the second half they go out there and play harder. We told them at half time you have to play like the game is 0-0. You got to go out and try to win the second half.”
The Cougars (0-2) will host Austin on Tuesday.