The blistering temperatures of August have long passed, but the month of November means the start of soccer season for athletes like MSMS junior August Andre. Originally from Lafayette High School in Oxford, Andre participated in numerous sports during elementary school.

“I played a lot of different things in elementary school. I played tennis, I did karate, I did gymnastics at one point. I liked them for certain periods of time but then afterward I just didn’t really get into it.”

During his eighth grade year, Andre’s interest began to shift towards archery.

“It’s less of a spectator sport. It’s more just about, you know, shooting a bow. Also it’s more personal. There are team aspects, but you can I guess you can benefit on your own and not a lot of communications necessarily involved. You still feel the team connection because you work together and stuff, but I wouldn’t say it’s nearly as stressful as some of the other ones.”

At MSMS, August Andre plays soccer and likes being able to say he’s on the soccer team. August recalled fond memories of playing soccer with his dorm-mates in Tanzania, during a study abroad trip in the sixth grade.

“It was fun because we’d play with my dorm-mates, so I’ve always felt a somewhat fondness towards soccer. Here, people were doing soccer and they were talking about it and it seemed cool.”

August was originally reluctant to play the sport, but after some friendly encouragement from senior soccer player Harpreet Singh to attend just one practice, Andre has been going to every practice since. Andre says that the sense of community and the relationships built with teammates feels different than when he was playing archery at Lafayette High.

“Especially, here at MSMS I feel even more connected with the community, because we practice not Tuesdays and Thursday, but we practice every day, and we have sometimes three games a week. Not only is it very time-consuming, so you’re with your team all the time, but also I live with all my teammates, so it just builds upon that community aspect.”

The Blue Waves’ Boys Soccer Team’s first official game was the night of Thursday, November 9, with Louisville High School.

“We did pretty well. We went in there expecting to lose and came out tied 0-0.”

Andre cites working on his stamina as one of the biggest challenges for him this soccer, and the development of in-game communication as the biggest challenge for the team as a whole.

“Sometimes it’s hard shouting across the entire field when you’re out of breath. I think the season’s gonna be good, it’s gonna get progressively better. As we practice more and more, our communication between the team and our individual skills will progress.”

Andre has a very positive attitude about the rest of the soccer season, saying that winning as team and taking pride in team accomplishments is more important the output of the game. He spoke proudly of the helpful and supportive constructive criticism that their coach and team captains Yousef Abu-Salah, Daniel Leetran and David Thaggard provide to help boost team morale.

“Coach is great. He’s really supportive when we’re feeling down and stuff and he’s really helpful in pushing us to where he thinks we can go. I’d sub in and I’d get tired later on in the game, and I told him I want him to sub out. He told me, ‘You got it. Two more minutes.’”

Some of August’s favorite moments in soccer games are him diving for an escaping ball (thus grass-staining his jersey and socks) and seeing some of the insane balls that goalies Advaith Sunil and David Thaggard are able to capture.

“The exhilarating moments are when we do something we’ve been practicing and it works.”

August is a big team player, saying that he loves all his teammates and that it’s great to have them on the team, during the game, on the bench and in class.