By Drew Terhall

Dailyadvocate.com

ARCANUM — Soccer is back at Franklin Monroe. After a few years without a program, Brian and Bryce Robison are leading a Coed varsity team this season.

They marked the return of the program with an Alumni game on August 12. About 20+ alumni from the past years played two 20-minute halves against the high school team. The event ended as the alumni played against each other for two more halves.

Head coach Brian Robison said the day was an overall success. They even had previous soccer head coach Danny Diceanu there to be a referee.

“I think it’s been about five years since we last had the program. It was great bringing him (Diceanu) back, a lot of my old teammates and also the players that were out here before I was even in school. It was good to see them. It was good to see our team kind of get to interact with them, watch them play. Trying to learn something from the older players,” Robison said.

It was a hard fought battle between the alumni and the high school team. While relatively inexperienced, the current Jets team put up a fight.

Robison said he saw a lot of physicality and a lot of good instructional work being applied to a game scenario. It was a great learning experience for the team to learn from those that played before them.

“A lot of them are slightly inexperienced. They haven’t played since they were young. But, you can’t really tell that so far. We got a Coed team as well. A lot of the girls have played a lot more when they were younger, so they are a little more experienced. The boys continue to grow each day,” Robison said. “I’m pretty happy overall with the progress so far.”

The team then got to watch the alumni in action on the sidelines as the alumni talked trash to each other and competed for another 40 minutes.

The Jets will play their first game of the season at home against Greeneview on August 17 at noon.

Contact Daily Advocate sports editor Drew Terhall at [email protected].