EXCITEMENT BUILDS AS NORTHEAST MEN’S SOCCER PREPARES FOR FIRST GAME

NORFOLK, Neb. – It's a fresh start for the Northeast Community College men's soccer program as Adam Potter begins year one at the helm as the head coach for the Hawks. Potter joins Northeast after two successful seasons at Casper College in Casper, Wyoming, and he along with a large group of newcomers are itching for the opportunity to lace up their shoes and step on to the pitch for the first time as a team in a live game. 

"I'm extremely excited to work with this group of young men that are coming in," Potter said. "They are all raring to go and I'm excited to see where this 2022 season can go. I think we have a very talented group coming in and I think that they are all very hungry to set the standard and set the foundation that can be built from in the future." 

The roster as it stands consists of more than 20 newcomers that have never played in a Hawks uniform before, which gives Potter as a first-year head coach an avenue to lean on this group to echo his core values for years to come. 

"I think the biggest thing that I want to instill with my team is the hunger and desire for more," Potter said. "It's a new philosophy that I'm going to be implementing into my team this year. An example of that is implementing into the classroom the philosophy of, 'Hey, we've got four study hours but I'm getting five this week.' It's always wanting more. It applies to our team and everything that they are doing. The hunger and desire to chase everything that they do." 

One player who is apart of the returning group to Northeast this season is forward Paul Einero (Cape Town, South Africa), who was a First Team All-Region player last season and made the Region XI All-Tournament Team last fall. He tallied 14 goals, four assists and 32 points during his freshman season and Potter is itching to see what he can bring to the table in 2022. 

"I want to see Paul take that next step as a player," Potter said. "He's very good, very crafty on his movements and runs off the ball. I challenged him going into this summer to be a lot more dynamic in the wiliness and fearlessness to go at someone. To take on someone one v. one. I'm excited to see Paul's growth from this past offseason to now." 

Two other players who are back in 2022 after being recognized by the conference last year are Chad Le Roux (Alberton, South Africa) who earned First Team All-Region honors last year and Carlos Jimenez (Littleton, Colo.) who was named Honorable Mention All-Region last season. Potter is pleased about being able to mix players who have had some success in previous years with the batch of newcomers. 

"I'm excited to see Chad Le Roux and Carlos come into the team this year and be huge pieces of the puzzle. Carlos comes in with a lot of experience from already playing two seasons at the JUCO level. The hunger, desire and work ethic that he brings in training every day and the passion that he brings is going to play a huge part of our team on a daily basis."

Speaking of newcomers, the Hawks will look to lean on a new man in goal throughout the fall. 

"We've got a guy named Reagan Maliska (Glasgow, Scotland) who is a goalkeeper coming from Muskegon Community College," Potter said. "He brought his team to the National Tournament last year, was a captain and helped them win their conference title. He's going to add a lot of depth to our goalkeeping core that's going to help add a lot of competition. He brings a lot of experience for us in that position." 

Potter has named three captains with defender Conor Carew (Carlow, Ireland), defender Tom Hennah (Little Sandhurst, England) and forward Jeevan Purewal (Wolverhampton, England) all being tabbed with the honor. 

"You look at Conor Carew, when I watch him in training, he's a guy that can take over and take charge," Potter said. "In training sessions, you look for guys who if things are going wrong, they are able to fix it. Guys that can problem solve. Guys listen and guys respond to him." 

All three captains are freshman, but Potter believes they are wise for their years. 

"I've seen that in Jeevan and I've seen that in Tom in drills that we've done," Potter said. "They've only been here for a few weeks, but they put the team before themselves and they are willing to give advice for the betterment of the team and are selfless in everything that they do." 

The Hawks will make two different trips to Missouri along with a trip to Chicago, Illinois early in the season. Potter has a few different benchmarks of what he wants to see from his team early in the season. 

"I think the biggest thing that I want to see in that first month is just having the foundation laid of who we are as a Hawk and what it means to find success in every definition of the word," Potter said. "Not just on the field but in the classroom. I want to see that implemented into my guys while also having that hunger and desire of wanting more. When you have a bunch of new guys coming into a program those are the big pieces that I want laid into the foundation before anything else gets implemented into our X's and O's or anything else like that in conference play." 

Not only is Potter entering his first season, but he is also joined this year by former Northeast goalkeeper Jyson Breitbarth as an assistant coach. At Northeast, Breitbarth started 33 games as a goalkeeper and made 187 saves. He was named Second Team All-Region in the spring of 2021 as well as in the fall of 2021. He was also named to the NJCAA All-Academic First Team in 2020-2021 and 2021-2022. Breitbarth has the most saves over the course of a season in Northeast history with 108 and the most saves in a career with 187. 

Potter believes Brietbarth will be an enormous asset for the men's soccer program. 

"I think he's going to bring a lot," Potter said. "He's someone already from day one that I've been able to bounce ideas off of and he has a lot of history with Northeast from being on the team in the past. He has a lot of new ideas that he wants to bring to the table that we can implement. A lot of his goalkeeping experience of being an all-conference goalkeeper helps bring a lot of knowledge that will be a huge factor in our growth and development of our goalkeeping and our backline going into this season." 

When the season ends, what does Potter want to see from this team to consider the campaign a successful one? 

"I think the biggest thing that I want to see out of this group is the passion to fight every single time out and the willingness to fight for the person next to them," Potter said. "Like I said before, learning to lay the foundation and setting the culture is so important. Regardless of how many wins we have throughout the year and regardless of how many losses we have throughout the year, I think the biggest thing going into this season for me and my assistant coach is, are we defining what it means to be a Hawk?" 

The Hawks will get things rolling at 4 p.m. on Thursday, August 18 in a road matchup against Central Community College in Columbus, Nebraska. The Hawks will play their first contest in front of their home fans at 1 p.m. on Saturday, September 10 at Veterans Memorial Field in Norfolk against Indian Hills Community College. 

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