St. Anthony's Boys Soccer Team Looks To Continue Their Undefeated Season

Don Correo, Boys Head Varsity Coach. Been with the program since 2002 and then became the head coach in 2020. Who is the best team St. Anthony's ever had and which led to you telling them about that 2008 team and that they wanted to be better than them. Tell us a little bit about what you told them the message was. Well, fortunately they listened because I said in order to get to those heights, it would take a lot of hard work. That team in 2008 ended 20-0-1, but I told them that it's not about rankings, you know, that at the end of the day, this is one at a time, and if you aspire to achieve what they achieved, then you've just got to come to work, and they've done that. That team was very gifted, but I will tell you that what has distinguished this team is the fact that as a staff, for myself and all my coaches, we look forward to coming to work every day because of their work ethic. They want to come to work every day. Everybody that made the team put in the work over the summer, and it shows in this season. Everybody works hard in practice. There's not a single guy that doesn't want to be here. They know they've earned the place, and they're happy to be on the team, whether they're on the bench, whether they're a starter, or whether they're injured. everybody wants to be here and that's that level of energy just transfers throughout the whole team. Since the first day of practice the intensity has been the highest it's ever been when I was on this team. So I was on here since sophomore year and there hasn't been practices as intense as this year. You could see a complete difference in how everyone wants to be here. Everyone doesn't feel like they need to. Everyone just comes and gives it 100% every single time. I would say beating Chaminade for the first time home was definitely for me but for the team as well because I know me and some of the seniors we have I'd never beat Chaminade here this is my first time so I think that really lit the fire in me and I know a few other of my teammates seeing us how happy we were that built us up from there. It's a pretty special team you're on what what feels different this year to you? I feel like this year the leadership role that me and my two fellow captains have taken has honestly just made the team come together way better. The chemistry's here, and honestly, I feel like we've led the team to be undefeated as we are, and I feel like that it just brings the team together. I understand at halftime, there's a bit of a dance tradition. Yeah, we've got some music going at halftime, regardless of what's going on. The idea, we preach trying to encourage them to play freely. Our jobs are to listen. This is a player's game. It's not a coach's game. And we try to give our kids the flexibility and the opportunities to be themselves within our system. And, you know, just about all of them have grown up with us. And that's, you know, as a coach, it doesn't get better than that. Tell me a little bit about the halftime dances. The halftime dances came after our coach, DJ, actually mentioned to us, I forget which team, our college football team, did that, a coach had them do that at halftime, they were losing, and they went on to dance at halftime, ended up winning the game. It was one of the best games, so we try to bring that energy here, whether it's 0-0, whether it's 2-1, we're down, whether it's 8-0, we're up. We try to just make sure we all have energy in the games. First game we guys did that, if I had to say, it was probably St. John the Baptist when we played them here is when we first did that. The halftime dancing you know I think coaches and us we're big on having fun you know soccer is supposed to be fun obviously we come here to work but fun is very important keep the team engaged and what we do so we do a little halftime dance here and there to keep the team you know ready to go smiling and keep us in good spirits. What's it gonna take to finish the job and become league champions? Well obviously we've been doing extremely well so far but the biggest thing is we can't let all this attention get to our heads we've got to make sure that we stay humble and we know that as our coach rock says we're not entitled to anything and we have to keep that mentality going forward what would it mean to finish the job obviously you've come a long way but right exactly yeah I think just keeping our minds 100% straight I think not taking a playoff I mean anything could happen it could be a corner kick that leads to a goal and that's it 1-0 and our season's over just from an undefeated record right in playoffs but I think keeping our heads and not again not taking a playoff that's going to do it for us.