Owen soccer season off to a strong start following state championship

The Owen High boys soccer team had a historic 2022 season, ending the year as state champion, a first in program history.

As the new season starts, coach Trei Morrison said the Warhorses' goals for this year are the same as they have always been.

“It’s the same as it always will be,” Morrison said. “We want to win as many games as we can, we want to win our conference, we want to make a good run in the playoffs and see if we can challenge for a state championship.”

This is only Morrison’s second year coaching the team. He came on a few games into last season following a move by the former coach.

Morrison said the team feels some pressure to replicate last season's success, but he wants the team to focus more on short-term goals rather than long-term goals.

“You kind of have a target on your back because everybody wants to beat the defending state champions,” Morrison said. “There’s a little bit of pressure there, but we don’t talk about the season-long goals as much as we talk about every week, just working hard and getting better.”

There was little downtime between the end of the last school year and training for this season, and Morrison said it is a testament to the dedication of the team.  

“The boys work tremendously hard,” Morrison said. “They did a great job in the offseason of working in the weight room, and then we started preseason training. School finished on Friday, graduation was on Saturday, and Monday we started training.”

The Warhorses lost 11 seniors at the end of the 2022 season.

More:Kendall brothers, Owen soccer break through for first state championship

“There’s players in there that you can’t really think about replacing,” Morrison said. “You just have to hope you find somebody that does the job in their way.”

One of the players Morrison said cannot be replaced his Harrison Kendall, who took the winning penalty kick for Owen in last year’s state championship game against Clinton. Kendall was a conference and region player of the year as well as a member of the all-state team.

Kendall’s younger brother, Davis Kendall, scored 50 goals last year and is a starting junior this year.

Morrison said it is an adjustment to losing so many players, but it’s one the team is working on.

“You just don’t replace kids like that,” Morrison said. “We’ve got players that have their own skill sets, and we’ve kind of tried to set up the systems to get the most our of those guys and do the best we can with what we have this year.”

More:Owen coaches weigh in on state championship seasons

At the season opener Aug. 14, Owen beat Smoky Mountain 9-0. Morrison said the team had never beaten Smoky Mountain.

“We’re just excited to get the season going, and the kids are working really hard,” Morrison said. “We’ve set ourselves out to be as successful as we can.”

The Warhorses next home game is scheduled for Aug. 30 at 7 p.m. against T.C. Roberson.