The Wright City boys soccer team will be led by first year Head Coach Eric Deal. Last year, the Wildcats went 8-15 and lost in the first round of districts, a pretty common outcome from recent years. 

However, after talking with the team, Deal has set new specific goals that he believes they can achieve. The first goal is to have a .63% winning percentage. If achieved, they would end with a 14-8 record. 

The second goal is to make it past one round of districts, something that has not been done since the 2020 season. 

The third and final goal is to score three goals every game and limit their opponents to one. 

“There’s games that I feel we should win and there’s games that we may tie or lose. Then, there’s also games that will be very difficult, but we’re going to go out and try our best,” Deal said. 

Deal currently has 19 players on his varsity squad, with a good combination of forwards, midfielders and defenders. 

The team is young with more than half of the players labeled as underclassmen and seven of them being freshman. However, Deal has six seniors that have been helping the younger players. 

Deal does not have a concrete formation. Instead, he plans on adjusting their formation based on what other teams are doing. 

“We really want to try to prevent them from scoring on us and try to have a formation that allows us to score as well,” Deal said. 

Deal noted the focal point in practice has been team building. Specifically, passing and connecting the ball, knowing where to be on the field and players knowing their responsibilities. 

Senior Midfielder Keagan Loeffler added that as the offseason progressed, he started to feel more and more confident with where the team is at. 

“I like what Coach Deal is doing. I think it’s helping us develop as a team,” Loeffler said. “We have better drills and we’re doing more on the ball stuff and getting our conditioning with ball touches.” 

Loeffler went on to say that he would like to make the all-district team as well as achieving those three team goals. However, he ultimately wants to score as much as he can and be a role model for the younger guys on the team. 

“We have a lot of senior leadership and we’ve been playing together since freshman year. That’s kind of the core of the team,” Loeffler said. 

The Wildcats will open up their season with a home-opener on Sept. 3 at 4:00 p.m. 

“I’m looking forward to the season,” Deal said. “I hope we do well and everyone stays healthy on both our team and everyone else’s team.”