The soccer players had an awarding banquet.

On Monday night, there was a banquet held for the boys soccer program to recognize the players on the varsity and JV teams.

The boys soccer banquet is where players, their families and coaches look back on memories, eat food and the players receive awards. It was held on Monday, November 14, in the College and Career Center gymnasium at Bullitt East. This banquet was overall just another fun time for the teams to get together and talk about their years on the team.

Before the varsity banquet, there was the JV award ceremony. Their awards consisted of JV patches, which are another version of a trophy, like the varsity team received. The players were recognized for mostly the same awards as the varsity team was accoladed for.

Then, the varsity team had their awards ceremony. The Offense Award went to Lucas Adkins, Noah Wooten and Alazar Barsamian. Colin Shepherd received the Coaches Award, Justin Alden won the Playmaker Award, Cooper Mahoney won the Defensive and Leadership Award. Meanwhile, Barsamian also won the MVP Award, the most improved player was Gunner Mahoney, and Nate Drake received the 100 percent award. “The kids that won them [awards] deserve to be recognized.A lot of seniors won stuff and they will definitely be missed for leadership,” said Head Coach Michael Brangers.

Although many players won awards, some did not. “Those awards are kind of a mandatory thing to give out every year and I’ve won them before. My time playing the sport I love so much with my brothers was plenty because I know they’ve got my back no matter what and that’s all I really need,” said senior Matthew Childress.

The food at the banquet was catered by a restaurant in Fairdale, called “Shack in the Back.” They served foods like barbecue, salad and desserts, which were things like cookies.

When all the awards were given out, the seniors gave their speeches. In his speech, Childress teased the other seniors about how he was the “cutest child” growing up. “I thanked my parents, the underclassmen and especially Brangers and Baker [Assistant Coach] because I had never really played soccer until sophomore year. They both gave me a shot and I feel I more than exceeded their expectations,” said Childress

The five seniors have gotten so close that they have their own “special song” that they listen to, which is “All In” by Lil Yachty. “In it is the line, ‘Seven years later and I got the same friends.’ We take that to heart because we bond over how much we all love Lil Boat [an album of Lil Yachty] and the fact we’ve all been together for 7 years and we’ve never fought, all we do is grow around each other,” said Childress.

Childress’ biggest takeaway of the night was that he got to spend time with the team as a whole one last time. “I’m going to miss that group of guys more than anyone on this planet. I’d give all four limbs to play just one more year but my time is up and all I want is for the class under us to succeed,” said Childress.