See what Coach Todd Bretz and some of his players had to say about the upcoming Paul Laurence Dunbar boys’ soccer season.
Jared Peck, Real-Time Sports Reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader and co-founder of SoccerintheBluegrass.com, visited all nine Lexington high schools and spoke with coaches and players about the upcoming season. Over the next several days, SITB will release the notes and videos from those interviews that were used for the Herald-Leader’s preseason preview: Boys’ soccer: Will state’s toughest region turn out a new contender?
KHSAA link: Paul Laurence Dunbar schedule
Coach Todd Bretz
Our goal every year is just to try to develop the best team that we can. We don’t set goals in specifics, we set goals in development. Are players going to develop? How well do they improve? And we, as a team, what level can we get to? We don’t necessarily set goals and say, ok we want to do this or that. Our overall goal every year is to play that final game. That, hopefully, is a given. And in that, how well can we develop as a team.
We lose a lot in the back. We return Josh Sysdlik, who was our goalie last year, a very high quality goalie, so, he’s a strength for sure.
We have several young players that got a lot of playing time last year. Eddy Andrade, he’s going to be an impact player for us in the middle as a junior. But then we’ve got a couple of other seniors in Jackson Akins who, hopefully, will provide some leadership in the back, Sullivan Kerr? In the middle.
We’ve got to develop some scoring. Hopefully, Pedro Jimenez will give us that up front. And we’ve got a lot of good players that will hopefully will fill those other roles.
Our region, everyone’s good. That’s what makes our region so tough. Every team we play in the region is good. All the city teams are going to be strong again this year. There’s a lot of good players throughout the city. Tates Creek is very good. Catholic is going to be better this year. Lafayette lost a great senior class last year, but I think they have some good returning players. Lexington Christian continues to develop. But then you also have the Madison Centrals, the Woodford Counties – they are all much better now. Anybody can really win it.
We’re starting to see some development, starting to see some continuity between the players. We’re real early in the season, so it’s hard to so.
Every year we graduate 10 plus players and we’re bringing in 10 plus players in ever year, so there’s a time where we’re just starting to learn each other. We’ve got some people playing different roles this year. They’re accepting them really well and they’re developing well, but it’s so early in the season, it’s hard to tell.
We’ve got some speed on the outside, so we’ll look to use that. Daviess County exposed us in a lot of ways last year. We didn’t have quite the depth that I think we’ll have this year. We have a lot of young players I believe can step in once they get some experience. I think that will help us throughout the year. We always try to play very organized. We try to take what the other team gives us. Hopefully, we’ll be smart enough to read that. That’s the key.
Our ideal is that it’s a players’ game. Can the players get to the point where they recognize what the other team’s doing and adjust to that and then capitalize on it. If the outsides are able to be exposed, we want to do it. If that opens up more of a through ball, we want to do that. If we need to play with possession, we need to be able to do that. That’s the ultimate goal – to have them to go out there and understand the game and play.
Josh Szydlik, senior
It’s unlike anything else. You’ve got a consistent strong program every year. Our goal is obviously to win state and just go all the way. It’s what I’ve been wanting to do all four years.
Effort and chemistry. The seniors are close with juniors and they’re close with the sophomores. So, we’ve got chemistry this year. Everyone’s already given a ton of effort. We don’t have anyone lacking or slacking off or anything.
It’s an unbelievable experience. Everyone knows about Bretz. Everyone knows he’s very strict, he’s very straightforward and it’s nice to have that coaching as a team.
(The 11th Region) It’s tough, but it just makes us want to win more. If we win it, it makes us realize we just won the best region in the state and we win the region, we should be able to win the state championship.
