Coach Lounsberry interview and thoughts going into the season

The 2022 soccer season was a great year for East High School. The Scarlets made it all the way to the sub state finals and lost a close game to Urbandale High School. But now it’s a new year and coach Derek Lounsberry has new goals. But what are these goals? In the 2022 season, the Scarlets finished with a 13-7 record, and this was led by their head Coach Lounsberry. Lounsberry has been at East for 26 years and has been the soccer coach for 25 of those years (He didn’t coach his first year). Over the years East has had many good seasons and many bad seasons and this year East can expect another good season.

“We want to one be competitive in every game, we want to make sure were in the top of our conference, and some of the players want to make it all the way to state,” Lounsberry said.

This year East has a very new team. Last year, East had 18 seniors graduate from East High School who were on the soccer team so this means there’s many new opportunities on the team for underclassmen to step up this year. This means we will have many new starters on varsity, new players on the team, and overall a new look for East.

“We’re a younger team we have fresher legs, but this also means we have a lot of kids who will need to prove themselves on a varsity field. For many kids, this will be their first time on a varsity field,” Lounsberry said. This year, the team is expecting a very similar season to last year. Last year, East shocked the state and made it all the way to sub state and this year the Scarlets hope to see similar results such as making the playoffs and hopefully going on a good run again. Many of the players want to see East make state and Coach Lounsberry has similar goals for his players.

“I think we are going to be fun to watch, we are going to score lots, of goals I think were going to be faster I think were going to have the opportunity to have many players who develop and go onto collage. I think we’re going to be a top team in the conference and hopefully a top ten team in the state,” Lounsberry said.