Wave mistakes costly in soccer scrimmage

Dylan Avore gets the ball upfield for Greenville during Tuesday's scrimmage with
Stebbins. The Indians won the soccer scrimmage, 5-1. CNO Photos by George Starks

By George Starks

GREENVILLE- The Greenville boys soccer team welcomed Stebbins on Monday evening and it wasn’t pretty for the Wave.

On a night when the play of the Wave was as cold as the air temperature, mistakes proved costly in a 5-1 loss to the Indians.

“This is a top-notch program,” said Greenville coach Brent DeVoss. “We play the best competition we can get because we want to get better and this is how you get better.”

On several occasions after the match was over, DeVoss pointed out several things that went wrong that cost Greenville a possible victory, citing poor passing and missed traps.

“We had a lot of mistakes out there tonight,” DeVoss admitted. “Fundamentally, not where we want to be at the start of the season. We had too many missed passes that they (Stebbins) were able to take advantage of. Every mistake we made, they took advantage of us. We expect some things to happen, this is preseason, but it happened way too much.”

While the junior varsity looked good in its 3-1 win over the Tribe, it was the positives on the varsity the De Voss tried to talk about.

“We are young,” said DeVoss. “We have a lot to learn and a lot of things that need to be corrected. We have good leadership with our seniors and they will play hard for us. They bring a lot of positivity to the team and will help make us grow. We have to continue to grow the team play. Certain players are being left out of the team play and we want to get everyone involved. We don’t need three or four guys taking over, we need all 11 guys out there to be involved. So we have to build that team concept.”
With opening day right around the corner at Miamisburg, DeVoss knows there’s work to be done.

“We have a lot of work to do and a short time to get it done in,” admitted the Wave coach. “We will take some time off, nurse some injuries and comeback Monday ready to hit it.”

Greenville will open on the road at Miamisburg on the 24th and will then play at home on Tuesday, the 27th hosting Xenia.