Both soccer teams have a big switch this season, as both JV and varsity soccer teams have had a change in coaching.
The head coach for boys soccer, Jace Duffield, resigned last season due to a move to Montana. While the girls head coach, Hunter Brekke, also resigned after the season last year to give more time to continue his master’s degree.
As these two coaches have resigned this summer, both teams will have a clean sweep with coaches.
Coach Ian Costello is the new boys head coach. Costello has a long list of places he’s coached at, but some include Moorhead, Shanley and Davies. He was the head coach at Davies for 9 years before coming over to North.
As the head coach, Costello added a completely new roster of assistant coaches. Micheal Breker, David Zebley, and Rachel Nemer followed Costello to North from Davies. “The relationships built overtime makes coaching easier when we’ve known and worked with each other for a long time,” said Costello.
The season started out rocky for the boys but they came back and still have a chance at state. “I’m excited to see the guys fight out of the hole that we have dug ourselves into,” says Costello. “I’m looking forward to seeing if the guys still have the fight and want to compete.”
Boys soccer has a little less than half their season ahead of them with state being in mid October. State is held in Bismarck and the 4 best teams of the WDC and EDC go.
Their record is 5-5 and are ranked 4th in the EDC. With four regular season games to go, the third through 6th sports are close.
The Spartans soccer team has a total of 18 seniors throughout the two teams, and a total of 24 players on the varsity team. Out of those seniors, four of them are captains. Ray Walen, James Lein, Max Watson, and Maddox Watson.
The boys are excited for this change and can’t wait to see how far they can go with the new coaching staff. “A lot of us captains talked about a fresh start, we knew there’d be a different coaching style and we were prepared to change how we’ve done it the previous four years with Jace” [It’s going well], if we win two more games we go to state.” Said senior captain, Maddox Watson.
The girls side also has a switch. Matthew Nemer is coming to North to start his coaching career. Nemer has played soccer at Concordia in Moorhead as well as tennis. Nemer is a Davies Amuni and Costello was his coach when he played there.
Nemer is majoring in teaching and minoring in coaching at Condrida and is in his senior year.
The girls team has struggled the last few years to make it to state and are already ready for the season to start. They only lost three seniors last year and all of their starters are returning players. The girls will have a strong team this season and can’t wait to see what these new coaches bring to the table.