Central Heights starts new soccer club

The Soccer Club at Central Heights had their first tournament on Jan. 27 and 28. The Soccer Club is coached by Jonathan Vick and Ruby Fuentes. The Soccer Club is new this year, however, it is not affiliated with the school. 

“I was told it had to be a club because they needed to show they could sustain the numbers for years before it became a sport at the school,” Vick said. “We need to make sure the program can sustain itself.”

The Soccer Club is not a sport at the school, although they practice after school on the track field. The club used to practice behind the school until the track was finished with its renovation. 

“While the track was being resurfaced, practices were behind the school in a pasture,” Vick said. “Once the track got done we were able to move the goals down there for middle school and high school.”

The program is off to a good start, and anyone is welcome to try out for the club next year. Kelso McEntire, a member of the club, said they played well at their tournament last week. 

“So we have two games each day, the first one is at 5:30 then 7, we played Waskom then Tenaha at Waskom on Thursday,” Mcentire said. “On Friday we played Brownsboro then Atlanta.” 

The Club practices every week on Monday and Wednesday right after school until 5:45 p.m. Vick sometimes coaches the team and he is excited to see where this program will go. 

“This club allows kids to be involved in an after school activity,” Vick said. “It gives kids an opportunity to be involved in something and already over 10% of the high school population is participating.” 

Mcentire recently played soccer at Regents Academy and is excited to participate in Soccer again this year. He enjoyed playing soccer at Regents and they won state in 2018. 

“Since I played two years of varsity at Regents this is definitely a fun thing for me,” McEntire said. “A passion has come back in a new way, and now I can lead young kids. I feel I can be a good part of the team.” 

McEntire has a good mindset for the season. He is here to support his teammates during the season and has a good attitude on the outlook. 

“I’m very excited. I feel like how we’ve been playing will be good, I just need to stick with how I’ve been training,” McEntire said. “It will be interesting to see how we do in this first game but after this game we’ll catch our stride for sure.”