Since the 2012 season, the Bellevue College men’s soccer team has been undergoing many changes including a new coach, a new field and a new practice regimen. With so many new things happening, there were bound to be some bugs to keep the team from performing to their full potential. The team finished the season 4th in the Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges (NWAACC) West division with a record of 5-8-0 and 15 points. In this season, they were one win short of reaching the number of wins from the 2011 and 2012 seasons combined.
Head coach Andrew Croft was anything but disappointed with his team’s performance this year, “It is hard not to be impressed with the team this season. I mean regardless of the expectations we had coming [in]to this program and being the young coach and wanting to win immediately to [almost] tie the win total of 2012 and 2012 combined.” While the only team they beat out in their division was Olympic, this is still a huge improvement for the team and a large step forward for the program as a whole.
Although winning was a huge priority to the team, they never lost sight of the fact that they had to work hard to keep their grades up. Croft made sure that the team always knew that while winning was important, there were other issues too, “Taking away the wins and losses to see some of these guys’ GPAs rise and mentality of some of these boys rise and see their individual development rise has been great for me,” said Croft. Before he starts off next year’s team, Croft is making sure that his second year students are able to go to a four-year college whether they want to continue playing soccer or not.
The men’s soccer program at BC is looking bright. With a new coach at the helm, there is no reason why they can’t continue to improve and turn into a true contender for the NWAACC title within the coming years.