Andrews – Both the Andrews and Tri-County boys soccer teams are in their second year trying to rebuild programs, with the Wildcats restarting their program last year for the first time since 2017 and the Jaguars starting from scratch last year.
When the two teams met on Sept. 7, Andrews looks to be ahead of Tri-County in their rebuild due to the Wildcats talent at forward. Andrews was able to control possession for much of the game and, after not converting on all its opportunities in the first half, senior Joshua Hernandez’s second-half hat trick powered the Wildcats to a 4-0 win.
“Our seniors are the core,” Andrews soccer head coach Pat Santora said. “They’re going to be the core all year. They just have to maintain.”
Andrews has six seniors on this year’s team, including Hernandez and fellow senior forward Elvin Trigueros, as well as Malachi Haines and Anakaren Medina leading the defense with Joseph Evans in goal. The Wildcats have some youth, too, with sophomore Ethan Barton scoring the first goal of the game less than four minutes into the contest. Hernandez’s first goal came off a cross from David Morales, and his last two came from dribbling around Tri-County defenders.
It was a bounce-back performance for Andrews after opening the season with a 10-2 loss to Highlands. Santora is just looking for improvement each game, as well as for his team to play with better spacing and awareness on the field
“I’m not going to tell you we’re going to have a winning season,” Santora said. “I’d like that, but all I’m looking for is they improve every game.”
Chris Blanton is coaching Tri-County this year. He is trying to instill confidence and a more positive culture into the new program.
“I do want them to believe in themselves, and I tell them how good they are,” Blanton said. “And how we’re gonna come out there and play to win. We practice to win, we’ll play to win.”
Blanton said he learned about the opportunity while preparing for hip replacement surgery in July. Though this is his first high school coaching job, he has coached youth soccer for 30 years. His son, Hayden, is a freshman on Murphy’s team this fall.
He said it’s a good group to go into high school coaching with and, despite having just two seniors on the team, they have made some progress. The Jaguars tied Cherokee to start the year on Sept. 4 after losing to the Braves twice last year, and the loss to Andrews was closer than both games against the Wildcats last year.
Freshman Andrew White and junior Landen Spies had some good runs, especially in the second half, but couldn’t get Tri-County on the board.
“It’s improvement,” Blanton said. “But we still got some improvement to do.”