Sometimes, the journey may be more important than the destination. A long season saw many changes and challenges for the Boy’s and Girl’s Varsity Soccer teams, both of which resulted in bronze medals in Manila.

The first day proved to be less than impressive, as the boys came out with a loss and a draw, and the girls team with two losses. However, the turn of events on the second day was impressive. When many of us felt that our teams would be returning home, the Panthers roared loudest to make an incredible comeback. Two wins out of two for the boys team on the second day, while the girls managed to remain unbeaten on day 2 as well.

On the final day, the Girls managed to pick up a victory against ISKL when it mattered most, taking a slot in the third place match. They found themselves in a battle for the bronze medal which they won 2-0 over TAS. On the boys side, the Panthers were unable to book their tickets to the final against JIS and were sent to their respective third place match, which they won 2-0 against ISKL.

“I think we all realized that we had a mountain to climb after the first day, but since so many of us had already done it last year, we went into the second day all guns blazing and got the results we needed” said Nathan Scott, captain of the boys squad, who was sidelined for the majority of IASAS through injury. “It’s certainly harder watching from the side than playing. However I’m still shouting the same things as I would if I was playing, just from the bench instead” he commented on his injury.

Sophomore Ruben Rodriguez captained the boys on the pitch, expressing that “it was a great honor and privilege to captain a team at IASAS” and he is proud of his team’s ability to fight back. “We realized that we would have to give it our everything, this was what we trained two months for, we could not just throw it all away by giving it 80%, we all chose to give it 110% and that’s what I am most proud of.”

Yuto Mizusaka, one of the key players at IASAS, said that the team “couldn’t just give up because [they were] representing the school,” and that pride motivated them to make a comeback.

The girls squad made a great come back as well. The first matched proved to be a scare for the girls, but according to Coach Davy, the team “didn’t play that badly” as they only  “conceded a couple of sloppy goals from set pieces” in the first game against TAS. Again, an ISB team displayed resilience in the face of adversity as the girls fought their way into the third place game.

Coach Davy further went on to say that he had gotten “reports that [Singapore] had the strongest team they had had in a long time” and that “out of their 16 players, all of them were very strong, all the way through the bench.” Other than Singapore, however; the other teams were very closely matched and any team had the capacity to finish anywhere in the table.

With the competitive nature of such a tournament, the third place prize is in no way unsatisfactory. From a program-wide perspective, double bronze at IASAS is encouraging, suggesting that success lies ahead as the younger members of the team get a taste of a medal; a taste that will hopefully ignite a hunger for greater achievements within the returning players.

Gian C.