Youthful Humberside off to great start

[attach]2327[/attach]Humberside Huskies junior boys soccer team has launched out of the gate quickly, starting off the season with a 2-0 record.

The young squad beat East York Goliaths 2-0 Sept. 29.

Head coach Rob Tallevi said he was pleased with his squad’s performance.

“It’s still early, but we have had a good start,” he said. “We are looking pretty strong and we are hoping we can continue building and get better every game.”

The challenge for Humberside’s coaching staff is getting the team to play as one.

“Mostly, the kids who are on this team play rep soccer, so they are already coming to us with a decent background of soccer and what we are trying to do is work on team chemistry and working as a unit,” Tallevi said. “The defenders work together as a unit, the midfielders work together as a unit and so on and so on.

“We are trying to get all of these individuals to come together and play more as a team.”

Striker Harun Roble scored both Humberside goals. Tallevi said Roble is a very strong player and a natural leader but he wasn’t the only standout during the game.

“Our defensive unit was really strong and aggressive,” Tallevi said. “Our midfielders pressured the East York players and caused turnovers, which we were able to capitalize on.”

Getting off to a quick start is an important confidence builder for the Huskies because this is the first year the school has had a junior squad.

“This is the first junior team at Humberside in quite some time so we do have a lot of young grade 9s,” Tallevi said. “We don’t have too high of expectations but what we do want to see is the kids get better each game. I want to be a better team at the end of the season than we were at the start of the season.”

Tallevi isn’t setting expectations too high due to having a young soccer team lacking high school experience.

“I would like to see the kids get into the playoffs and win at least one post-season game,” he said. “If we can do that I would be happy.

“Obviously it would be nice to do really well and win the whole thing.”

One of the games Tallevi is looking forward to is against Lawrence Park. The coach hopes they can play as well as they did against the Goliaths.

“We are looking to play another strong game, but clean up some of the mistakes we made last game,” Tallevi says. “What we really need to do is mark better in our own end, especially off set plays like corner kicks.

“I am hoping that the same aggression and desire that they played with against East York will be there against Lawrence Park,” he added. “I think that really helped us get a victory because we were able to win loose balls and it really bodes well for us.”