{"id":45890,"date":"2021-09-15T09:32:37","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T13:32:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/?p=45890"},"modified":"2021-09-15T09:43:53","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T13:43:53","slug":"lames-building-bond-during-turnaround-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/2021\/09\/lames-building-bond-during-turnaround-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Flames Building Bond During Turnaround Season"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is re-posted from a Sept. 14, 2021 article by Cody Elliott<\/a> in the Daily News-Record. Photos by Daniel Lin, DN-R<\/em><\/p>\n

As his teammates celebrated around the bench behind him, Schuyler Harmison stood with his hands on his hips and pondered a bit before revealing an answer.<\/p>\n

Fresh off a 5-0 victory over Hargrave Military Academy on Tuesday at home, the Eastern Mennonite boys soccer program has now put together six straight wins.<\/p>\n

The biggest reason why, according to Harmison? There are no egos.<\/p>\n

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\u201cA flip has been switched on our team,\u201d said the senior goalkeeper Harmison. \u201cWe have more of a team atmosphere and we\u2019re more positive. We really, really just want to go out and play soccer and that\u2019s something that\u2019s been different from years past for us. Two years ago, I was on this team and we were just as talented but this group of guys \u2014 we love playing soccer together and we work well together. We\u2019ve started really working hard and it\u2019s showing now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since falling to non-conference opponent Seton in their season opener on Aug. 21, the Flames have reeled off six consecutive victories, including the past two over Virginia Independent Conference opponents New Covenant and Hargrave.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Logan Weaver, Ezra Miller, Luga Samson, Tyler Mast and Joshua Early all scored as part of a five-goal second half for EMS in the victory.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re able to find the open man and the runners and get creative and find those plays to get open goals,\u201d Flames senior midfielder and captain Tyler Shank said. \u201cThe thing that sets us apart from other teams is that we worked really hard at the beginning of the season to build our fitness up. In the second half, when other teams are getting tired, we\u2019re really ramping up things up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Flames have been able to score in bunches this season with three players tallying at least four goals and nine hitting the back of the net at least once.<\/p>\n

Despite 11 freshmen, Eastern Mennonite hasn\u2019t looked inexperienced this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of youth on the team and I like the freshness that it brings,\u201d Flames third-year coach Ryan Eshleman-Robles said after Tuesday\u2019s victory. \u201cIt\u2019s nice to have a bunch of guys to build something with. We have leadership at the top of our team with seniors and upperclassmen and they understand what it means to miss a season, so they\u2019re hungry and excited to show guys what it\u2019s about. It\u2019s a good mixture of youth and experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Despite now being in his third year, technically, as the boys soccer coach at EMS, Eshleman-Robles said it feels like he\u2019s starting over a bit this season.<\/p>\n

After taking over the program in 2019 and never having a chance to go through an entire offseason with the players, the 2020 season was cancelled.<\/p>\n

Now, two years later, Eshleman-Robles said he\u2019s starting to see progress.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like we\u2019re starting all over again,\u201d Eshleman-Robles said. \u201cWe\u2019re not even rebuilding, just building. We had some ground and had to figure out what to do with it. The guys bring that excitement and the want of new traditions. I think they\u2019re appreciating every moment, knowing we didn\u2019t have that before.\u201d<\/p>\n

For players like Harmison, losing the 2020 season was a bit of an eye-opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can remember last fall and missing out on my soccer season was pretty rough,\u201d Harmison said. \u201cI can remember my first time getting out for preseason this summer and I was just so stoked to be out here again. I think that has carried over for us. It never really feels like a job. It\u2019s a lot of fun for us and we\u2019ve all just been eager to come out and play as well as we have been.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting in August, the Flames committed to turning the program around.<\/p>\n

Now, with wins in six of their first seven, they\u2019re trending toward doing so.<\/p>\n

And, more importantly, the EMS players said they\u2019re doing it together.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve worked hard for this,\u201d Flames senior Elias Stoll said. \u201cAll of the younger guys are really excited. We just want to keep on winning. We\u2019re already looking forward to our next match.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This article is re-posted from a Sept. 14, 2021 article by Cody Elliott in the Daily News-Record. Photos by Daniel Lin, DN-R As his teammates celebrated around the bench behind him, Schuyler Harmison stood with his hands on his hips and pondered a bit before revealing an answer. Fresh off a 5-0 victory over Hargrave\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":45891,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79],"tags":[140],"class_list":["post-45890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-athletics","tag-soccer"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.easternmennonite.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45890"}],"curies":[{"name":"gracias","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}