SNOQUALMIE – Losing a large group of seniors to graduation in 2003 will find the Mount Si boys’ soccer team looking to avenge the lingering memory of the first-round playoff loss to Skyline last year with new leaders.
Returning for his second year as head coach of the Wildcats is Tom Bialek, who has a simple message for his team.
“I expect that they come out and they prepare and they work hard,” he said. “If they prepare hard, and they do the things that we’re supposed to do in preparation, I think we’ve got a pretty good group here.”
Among the top returning players is junior forward Yosef Yetneberk. Yetneberk was the team’s offensive machine last season, and senior Dan Talevich is looking for Yetneberk to add a little to that engine.
“He’s looking really great so far this year. His skills have improved – his speed, he’s even quicker, which is almost unbelievable. But he’s going to need to also rely on passing it back to Dan [Barnes] and I, and he has, he’s been passing a lot more and he does have other players helping him on offense this year, so it should take a little bit of the weight off him,” said Talevich.
Along with Talevich and Barnes, Sean McCrae and Nick Swanson headline a cast of approximately seven seniors on this year’s squad. There is some youth, too, on this team, with five freshmen making the squad. “They’re just some good, young, talented players,” Bialek said.
As to what the Kingco Conference holds for the Wildcats, both Bialek and Talevich felt that Newport would contend for the top spot once again this season as they defend their 2003 state 3A boys’ soccer crown.
Where Mount Si fits into the picture, Bialek wasn’t sure.
“You never really know how all the teams are going to shake out. I think we are stronger relative to the league than we were last year but [I] don’t know. [We’ve] just got to get out and play and see what happens,” said Bialek.
A fundamental skill these young players will learn this year is work ethic.
“[The] thing I want the older players to teach the younger players is that work ethic is everything, that if they work hard, they can be successful, and they can control how hard they work. Some of the other things they can’t control, and the seniors, I want them to lead by example,” said Bialek.
Barnes is ready for the challenge of leading the new players.
“I’ve just got to motivate them along with [Dan] Talevich and set the example, come out [and] work hard every day,” said Barnes.
Talevich expects Bialek once again to work his defensive coaching magic with this team.
“[Coach Bialek’s] an excellent defensive coach. Last year he really developed our defensive skills and made us an incredibly defensive team and we didn’t even have that much but his coaching really showed through,” Talevich said “If he can focus his coaching on the defensive aspects, just build us into a great defensive team, then we’re going to be able to do some damage.”
Mount Si opens its Kingco 3A schedule March 23 at Issaquah against the Eagles. Their home opener is March 26 against the Cedarcrest Red Wolves, in what will be the Red Wolves’ last visit to Mount Si as members of the Kingco 3A Conference. Game times for all varsity home games is 7:30 p.m.
