In the early 2000’s, Generation X gave birth to a flurry of master-class soccer players. It just so happened that these soon-to-be professionals began their careers on the Berkeley Carroll Junior Varsity Soccer team… 

The 2018 season was a rough one, as one player clearly dictates: “It was full of ups and downs, but there were no ups.” Our record for the competitive season was 0-1-9, or something similarly bad, so one could imagine the pure bliss of winning our first, albeit exhibition, game as a team. We took what we could get, because we knew how horrible we were, but we had no idea that in just one year, we would be winning our first competitive game.

Now brings us to the start of the 2019 season. We had some new faces, old faces, and some 2018 faces abandoning our magnificent JV team for Varsity.

We opened our season at Dyker Beach Park against Friends Seminary. Once we got to the field we weren’t off to the best start. We were wearing the wrong color kits and if the other team didn’t have their other uniforms, we would have been in for a rough game. They scored first to everyone’s surprise. The trauma of last season was beginning to haunt the more senior members of the team. But were never doubted our abilities; Felipe scored a rebound goal and we were tied. Two minutes after time should have expired, they were given one final chance and they placed the ball into the bottom left corner and our first game ended in defeat. However we had a chance at redemption on Friday against Grace Church.

Upon arriving to the pitch on Friday, the heavens opened up as we were viciously attacked by lightning and we hid in the bus until the skies to clear up. We were in the correct uniforms, which was an improvement to last match, and we had faith that this could be the game we win. The game was a stalemate as neither team could create a single chance. The game ended 0-0 and it was two hours the parents that attended shall never get back. This game also marked the last appearances for Alex, Henry, and Brandon as they were all brought up to varsity. After losing key members of our defense in Brandon and Alex the team needed some shifting around. Hein was made captain in the absence of Alex and we hoped our team could stay afloat after their departure. Our next game was against Grace Church and our team was ready to play even with our weekend defense. We got to the pitch after a 45 minute bus ride to find out things had not gone according to plan once again. The pitch had white paint and grass but no goals. The game was canceled and we moved on to our next challenge: Dwight.

Last year Dwight didn’t have enough players to make a JV team and they had to drop out of the league for the season. We thought that they would be the weakest team in the league but that was not the case. Alex and Brandon’s absences were felt intensely as we lost 5-1. That following Monday we had a shot of redemption as it was time to play Friends Seminary once again. The absence of Coach Swift was felt as we lost once again 2-0. However we didn’t lose by 5, and we outplayed Friends for the first 70 minutes of the game until fatigue sent in and we crumbled. 

Our next match was against Grace Church, and after back to back losses our confidence was not the highest. Things weren’t going great in the beginning of this game. They scored first very early, but shortly after, Owen lobbed a shot over the 4 foot goalie and we were back in it. We conceded once again to yet another defensive error and went into halftime down 2-1. Graham then scored early on in the second half. But then yet again we conceded and a third goal from us seemed very unlikely. Their goalie then decided to run out the box with his hands on the ball which brakes almost every rule in the sport and we had one final chance. The ball was laid off to co-captain Graeme T. who rifled the ball top right and the keeper couldn’t reach it. The game ended 3-3. 

All of these games built up to a match against our biggest rivals: Packer. A game at the parade grounds was a guaranteed thriller and it lived up to the expectations. The game once again started poorly as we almost conceded a penalty very early on in the game, however Hein was able to save the penalty which gave our team a much needed confidence boost. We might actually be able to beat them. Nathaniel who came so close to scoring a game winning goal last match opened the scoring and then doubled his tally with another goal later on in the match. To everyone’s surprise Berkeley Carroll’s JV team had won a match.