Parkway Central soccer has had a recent history of success and this season has been a struggle compared to others. So far this season the Colts are 11-9-2, a winning season but not what was expected from the team according to their own standards.
Senior and captain, MJ Fritz is confident that this team has the ability to be successful in the playoffs. This is Fritz’s third year on varsity and admits this season has been a little bit of a struggle compared to his other two years.

“We won state my first year and went to the state quarter finals last year. We almost set school records for wins last year too,” Fritz said. The team had 13 seniors last year, which left many openings on the team for this year.

“We lost some big players,” Fritz said.
The team welcomed a strong group of underclassmen to the team this year, led by sophomores Connor Greene and Jack O’Leary. Greene is excited for this season and the future of PCH soccer.

“I think there is a lot in store for the future of the program and am excited to see where it goes.” Greene said.
You would think being a sophomore on varsity there is a lot of added pressure, but not with Greene.

“I don’t feel much pressure being young on the team because we have a great group of guys who support everyone and make sure everyone’s included.” Greene said.
The team has two freshman this year: Brady Blum and Zane Hungerford.

“I think Brady and Zane are great additions to the team and can definitely compete at this level for their age.” Greene said.

“As sophomores, we can definitely relate to the freshman. All of us as underclassman playing varsity for the first time is a challenge but in all, they put in good effort and make big contributions to the squad.”
Senior MJ Fritz is out for the season with an injury to his leg.

“I don’t really know if it was a specific play but in the Parkway tournament 3 weeks ago I felt it a lot more and I just stopped playing in the final game,” Fritz said.
Fritz still finds a way to have a big leadership role as captain, even though he can not play.

“Last night I felt like more of coach because I was up on the bench yelling at the team during the game because you just try to find ways to lead and do your job when you’re not able to be on the field,” Fritz said.
Junior Teagan Dunne, is co captains with Fritz.

“He is definitely [a] better [leader] than I am and he’s got the experience being with his club team being captain too and also with the academy a few years ago,” Fritz said.
On Oct. 18 and 19, the boys traveled to Rolla and won both games. The team got to stay overnight in the hotel and spend time together as a team.

“We bonded and it made us closer as a team,” senior Chris Stephens said.

Junior Russell Liebman is currently leading the team in goals, with 20 goals so far.

Juniors Margaux Eubank and Emily Lander are the managers for the team. As managers, they set up the jerseys before the game in number order and stand behind the goals for warm ups to help get balls that are kicked over the net. During the games, there are multiple tasks they do. They keep the water bottles filled up, sometimes they film, sometimes they do stats and than at the end of the games they collect the jerseys to be washed.

“My favorite part about being a manager is being with all the players. I love talking with them, but I also love watching them play soccer because it’s so cool to see the difference between the girls soccer season and the boys soccer season,” Lander said.

On Tuesday, the soccer team played Westminster at Rockwood Summit. Fritz felt confident that they would play well against Westminster for the first game of districts.

“We played them earlier in the season and we were just all over them the whole game,” Fritz said.
Although a tough opponent stands in the way of the Colts this year on their road to state, it is nothing new to them.

“In the 2017 state run we had to play Fort Zumwalt South,” Fritz said.

“We played them in the state quarters that year and they had two kids who both had 30 goals. It was the only high school game I’ve ever been actually nervous to defend someone but we ended up winning that game and moving on.”
Rockwood Summit is the other team in their district, who is the number 10 team in the nation. Summit has 20 wins and 1 tie. Christian Kraus, a player on the team has 37 goals this season.

“It will be a tall task but we can get it done,” Fritz said.