(Weeki Wachee) — There’s no shortage of seniors on this season’s edition of Weeki Wachee’s boys soccer team, but the experience might be quite where it should be for an older group.
Of those returning seniors, only five or six are starters from a year ago and Weeki Wachee head coach Shane Tarbox compares this 2017-2018 to his first campaign as the Hornets lead man. In Tarbox’s first season at Weeki Wachee, he was just getting to know the school and players, which he feels with some of the newer faces on the squad this season relates to his initial year as coach.
“We started the season with 12 seniors, two juniors and a freshman,” Tarbox said. “Five or six of the seniors are returning starters. Hunter Reid transferred over from NCT and the one freshman is my son, Jeff Tarbox.”
“There’s a lot of moving around right now. I’ve been moving my son and Hunter Reid around to see where guys fit best. We had regulars on the team the last couple of seasons. With all the people who graduated last year, we’ve had to fill in. It is a team that has potential to do well when it comes to the district tournament.”
The Hornets are coming off an 11-6-5 season in 2016-2017 and some of their top goal scorers from a year ago have since graduated, including Bailey Hypes and Joseph Raguso, whom both combined for 32 goals last year. Losing midfielder Harry Flanagan due to a torn ACL, however, adds another hole Tarbox has to fill in the lineup.
Tarbox has already gotten a brief look at how his team can perform against some of its district foes, facing Dade City, Pasco and rival Springstead. Both matches ended up being one-goal losses, but Tarbox believes the contests could’ve gone either way.
“I’m happy with our preseason performances. We’ve had a couple tough losses in a 2-1 loss to Pasco and 3-2 to Springstead. Those were two good games played that could’ve went either way any other day. The season also started with a tough loss of senior Harry Flanagan after he tore his ACL. That was a huge loss for us.”
“In the Pasco game, we made a couple mistakes in the first half, but we bounced back in the second half. Same thing in the Springstead. We made some mistakes on set pieces against Springstead, and other than those, we can get better with some of the tactics. I would kind of relate this to my first season because I didn’t really know the players then. I do know the players now obviously and this is a very coachable (team).”
Another dynamic that has been thrown into this season for Tarbox is the opportunity to coach his son, Jeff, on the varsity. His son is the lone freshman on Weeki Wachee’s team and he’s already proved he has what it takes, scoring his first goal against Springstead in the second game of the season.
On a club lacking attackers, Tarbox hopes his son can adopt a goal scoring mentality to fill the voids left behind by Hypes and Raguso, respectively.
“As a dad I’m proud and I’ve coached him for many years since three years old,” Tarbox added. “I’ve told him I’m not gonna treat him any different than any other guy. As a freshman, he’s impressed me with how he’s played on the varsity level.”
“He’s stepped up and filled some of the gaps that we’ve needed. All the varsity guys wanted him on the varsity team. He actually scored his first varsity goal against Springstead. That’s something we were missing from last season and we are trying to find out who are the goal scorers this season.”