WINNING WITH STYLE

How the young West High boys soccer team upholds a great culture of winning and chemistry.

BY: KEITH MOODY & GREGORY VAN AUKEN

The West High boys soccer team has had a long tradition of winning, and under head coach Brad Stiles this has only continued. Stiles has led the Trojans to 23 state tournament appearances, 9 state championships, in his 24 season tenure as head coach. Something is a little different this year, with a young team containing only three seniors in the usual starting 11 the team is young and exciting to watch.

The young core to watch contains names such as captain Nate Heenan ‘24, Ismail Mohamed ‘24 leading scorer, and new transfer Kaleab Wendy ‘24 This trio of guys along with the help of a strong sophomore core containing returning starters such as Liam Teghanemt ‘25, Daniel Fuentes ‘25, Christian Kim ‘25, and a great rotational boost in Azaam Guama ‘25 the future is bright for the Trojans.

“We are thinking about the future but the now is what is most important to this group as well is learning from the past.” Teghanemt describes last season “Last year we had so many leaders we would joke around so much but the difference is we locked in when we had to and I think that’s something we need to do more of this year.”

The Trojans have big games as the season winds down and will need to find that next level of focus if they want to make a deep run.

Heenan a newer face on the pitch as he describes his role last year as “A back up for a reserve. I started off the year well, but then an injury occurred and I was out for the rest of the year so I was more supporting my teammates on the bench than playing.”

Heenan has stepped into a captain’s role this year and will be a big part of any jumps they want to make with focus and intensity. He can be seen constantly commanding the right flank, and facilitating great attacking runs from his position at right back.

He tells us about his leadership style “I would say my leadership style is kind of aggressive, but I am also really chill sometimes, ” Heenan said.

Wendy as new transfer from Regina has given the midfield life with great attacking skills and leadership a great contrast to Teghanemt’s defensive role in the midfield. Fuentes, a returning starter from the ‘25 class plays a key role in the attack as a winger.

He talks about the evolution of his role, “My role has only gotten bigger since last year. I feel like I have more of a responsibility to create and score goals. I’ve been put in many different positions that I didn’t play last year as a result of having more trust from Stiles.”

As a transfer Wendy had trouble learning the system at the beginning but he had already known many of the people on the team. Watching you can easily tell how close this team is especially with all of the goals and smiles they share a big part of the smiles is Guama. An individual who was called up to varsity in the second half of the season and this year has seen his role take leaps even starting games this season.

The culture on this team is clearly winning oriented but this team is very close and loves to have fun. Even though I have talked a lot about the future they still have plenty to overcome this season. Being the number one seed in their substate bracket they have high expectations for a deep run this season, but that’s not quite enough for them. Some Trojans still feel like they let some games get away from them this season.

“I feel like one game

I still think about a lot is Prairie they’re currently ranked 5th and we are 6th in 4A. That game had a lot go wrong down the stretch. Even though we feel as if we outplayed them, we didn’t get the result we wanted.” That’s Teghanemt’s take on what some people still use to fuel them. He feels like there’s no reason to be satisfied now they haven’t done anything worth remembering.