Photo credit: Bradley Routh Sr. 

By: Joshua Felder

Staff Writer

Starting with preseason, Coach Elliot prioritized Hammond’s Varsity Soccer Team’s training on fitness, technique, and developing their playstyle. 

With a limited number of varsity returners this year, Coach Elliot plans to put a heavy emphasis on advancing all the first-year varsity players to the next level, whether they’re juniors or sophomores, so that they’re ready to lead the team in the future.

Coach Elliot highlights that he’s “trying to get the younger guys more playtime, getting them more used to varsity,” showing how he wants to give the new varsity players as much consistent playtime as possible to help build their skills and allow them to get varsity-level experience.

The reason for Coach Elliott focusing on the youth so heavily is because he sees a special desire and hunger in them. This indicates that they all have great potential in the upcoming years and can definitely become great players in the future. With continued dedication and hard work, the team will surely continue to grow.

This motivation and drive to constantly improve creates competition for starting spots between players. It also makes sure that the starting roster is never set in stone, giving everyone the chance to take a starting position and make a name for themselves, if they set their heart on it.

In Coach’s eyes, success doesn’t just look like a winning record. To him, success means “finishing better than we started.” This means that he wants to prioritize being better than they were at the start of the season, and also making past the first round of playoffs. Success is heavily dependent on how much the team trains and grows, especially the newer players.

Their strategy to build chemistry for the season revolves around association play and everyone practicing with each other, instead of just separating them based on the starting eleven. This method will definitely help the team grow closer together.

Although the team needs to build this bond between everyone, once the season starts, the coach has to focus more on the starting players compared to everyone else to progress and keep them in their best shape for games.

This season there are 4 captains: Owen Bangassi, Andrew Roddy, Grant Pisone, and Drew O’Neil. These seniors will give the team the needed leadership and skill needed for the younger players, becoming ideal role models.

As for Coach Elliot’s coaching style, he prefers to go into every game and practice as aggressive and intensely as possible.

“I try to treat every game and in-game situation very seriously, and I want my team to develop that same mindset.” He’s serious about the team this year, and hopes that they are too.

His main goal for games is for the fans to come excited and passionate. He wants everybody watching the game to know that Hammond is the better team; win or lose.

Overall, he wants fans all over Howard County to acknowledge that Hammond has a top tier soccer program, and wants to give our fans a team to be proud of.