West Anchorage High School defeated Bartlett High School 6-0 in an action-packed game of Varsity soccer on Tuesday, March 27th at The Dome.

West’s record is now 2-0. When asked what he thinks makes his team so successful, Striker Alexis Ruiz said, “I personally believe we all have really good chemistry together.” Ruiz has been playing since he was in 6th grade. He was originally  inspired to play soccer after he started watching soccer on tv with his dad and he wanted to do the same thing as the players that he watched on tv. He still enjoys watching his favorite player Antoine Griezmann, as well as his favorite team Manchester United.

When asked the same question about what he thinks makes the team so successful, Left Winger Michael Dreher said, “I think we’ve got a good core group of guys and we play well together passing the ball.” Dreher has been playing soccer since he was in 5th grade, when him and his friends started playing it at recess. Dreher’s favorite soccer player is Mesut Özil, who plays on Dreher’s favorite team, Arsenal F.C.

Coach Kaleb Kuehn, who’s been coaching at West for seven years, is a very dedicated and hard-working coach. He claims that he spends at least 25 hours a week coaching, including games. Kuehn says that a team being successful really comes down to leadership and responsibility. “We have a group of seniors this year that come from different parts of the world and collectively they can put it all together and make a really unique team.”

Coach Kuehn played soccer in high school, as well as in college and semi-professionally. He wanted to start coaching because soccer is really important to him and taught him a lot about his life. “It’s not me that can win the games for the boys, but I can inspire them and help them become responsible adults and good people in society, which really translates into the team.”

Players have practice six days a week. A typical practice lasts about two hours. After stretching, the players spend about 20-30 minutes doing a 5v2 drill, which is a kind of passing game. Then, they work on whatever their “session topic” is, which could be shooting or defensive work. They typically end the practice with some sort of game.

It will be free to come to soccer matches this year at the turf. “We’d like to get as many people out to support us as possible,” said Coach Kuehn. “Four teams this year from the Cook Inlet conference can go to state, so I really have an eye for us to go to state. Concessions will be open during games and people will be selling gear.

West has had a great start to the season so far and will hopefully continue its success in future games.