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First-year Geneva boys soccer coach Jamie Lee was pleased that his team showed a big improvement this fall.
The Eagles finished the season with a 7-11-2 record including winning in the first round of the postseason tournament.
Geneva improved from two wins the previous season and finished second in the Chagrin Valley Conference Lake Division with a 3-1 record.
Lee was rewarded for his efforts by being named the 2024 Ashtabula County Co-Coach of the Year, as voted on the coaches, with Grand Valley’s Rick Huffman.
Lee was happy, even though his fellow county coaches weren’t familar with him very well, they saw the difference he had helped make in the Eagles’ soccer program.
“A lot of the guys don’t know me from anybody, so to be nominated and then voted upon, it was super awesome, a super awesome feeling, to know that they noticed the difference that we made this year as far as the team goes,” Lee said.
“We were much more of a cohesive unit this year and the kids were in better spirits and overall just played better, so that fact that people noticed that means a lot to me.”
Lee said one of his team’s highlights was a battle against Kirtland, which ended in a 1-1 tie, after the Hornets pretty much had their way with the Eagles the previous season.
“It was a very tough battle that I wanted to do well in and we showed them that we really improved and basically we didn’t let them push us around and I was very proud of that,” Lee said.
He said junior Paxton Galliazzo led the team in points scored, and his goalkeeper, senior Kyle Hejduk, had 136 saves, with more than 300 for his career.
The Eagles had a roster of 18 players, including five seniors and four juniors, four sophomores, and five freshmen.
Geneva is expected to have a large number of returners next season.
Lee has been a club soccer coach for at least five years, so transitioning to coaching high school players was a bit different.
In club soccer, he said, the idea was to keep pushing forward as often as possible to try to get scoring opportunities.
With the high school team, patience to maintain possession of the ball was the key strategy because of how the team was constructed and players’ skills.
“Most of my team were all travel kids,” Lee said. “So getting them to switch that mindset from ‘hey let’s move the ball downfield, up the field’ to we need to hold the ball and maintain possession.”
He said it took some time to establish that mindset, but the resulting patience allowed his players more time to think and make a better path and smarter decisions.
“We didn’t do well against high-pressure teams, so when we would get challenged it would turn into a 50/50 and we would lose the ball,” Lee said.
“They got better as the season progressed and by the end, we were definitely playing much more patient ball, much better, smarter soccer,” Lee said. “It was definitely a progression.”
