In his inaugural season as coach of the Archbishop Thomas Murphy boys soccer team, Jon Echols leads a team of exceptional athletes.
Critical links in Echols’ chain of fundamentals are two Nates: Feltner and Carlton. Each has played soccer since his freshman year at the school.
“They’re excellent senior leaders,” Echols said. “They’re a couple of very smart, very responsible guys to have around. They’ve made my job a lot easier.”
According to Echols, the Wildcats look to build on the success of the last campaign, which resulted in a district tournament appearance.
“We’re obviously looking to go further this year, hopefully through the districts to the state tournament,” Echols said. “Of course, that’s probably every team’s goal.”
Junior Andrew Hewitt is another player upon whom Echols will heavily depend this season.
“We have a really strong junior class, a lot of good athletes,” Echols said. “He’s on top of a very good junior class.”
In only two games, Hewitt, a center midfielder, already had accumulated four assists.
“He does a good job of getting the ball to the right people at the right time,” Echols said, stating that most Archbishop Murphy goals come from teamwork, with “not a lot of spectacular individual play.”
A new coach probably couldn’t wish for a deeper talent pool.
“I haven’t been around long, but I have a lot of good quality guys,” Echols said.
With a pair of victories under their belts, the Wildcats look forward to a rousing season of turf pounding.
In their first outing, Archbishop Murphy knocked off Cascade Christian 5-4.
“It definitely was an offensive game,” Echols said. “We had a few minor problems on defense.”
According to the coach, his team worked on filling the holes and when it faced Overlake shortly thereafter, he was pleased with the 3-2 victory.
“We had quality wins against quality teams,” Echols said. “We use those games as a measuring stick against who we’re going to face as the season goes on.”
Echols knows that the road to the state tournament will likely go through Overlake again.
“It was their first game of the season,” Echols said. “We were fortunate to get them early in the season.
“We really played hard. If we played it 10 times, it probably would have come out five and five.”
In both of the Wildcats’ initial games, the team trailed 1-0 in the first few minutes.
“They didn’t quit, they kept coming back,” Echols said. “One question you have to ask is, ‘How’s a team going to respond?’
“There was no quit in them.”
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