Looking back at last years championship game, boys varsity soccer captain Isaiah Nieves ‘17 recollects what it felt like to win the largest high school soccer tournament in the country.

“[Winning] it meant a lot, because towards the end of the season we’d look back at it and know that we won Pepsi,” Nieves said. “No one could ever take that away from us. We played really well and won the whole thing.”

Although the team gained confidence from last year’s victory, they are forced to adapt to a break of the tournament’s tradition. Due to a new change in criteria, the PepsiCo Showdown will no longer hold its preliminary rounds at the LT NC fields, coach Paul Labbato said. Instead, the tournament relocated its opening day to Stuart Sports Complex in Montgomery, IL, according to the official PepsiCo Showdown website.

“I feel sad because we won’t have our first Saturday game on our fields,” Nieves said. “I don’t know how many fans will go out to the park that far from here.”

The promoter and director of the PepsiCo Showdown has decided to expand from 32 teams to 64 teams, therefore the three soccer fields of LT cannot support another set of games for the tournament, Labbato said. The new site has 12 soccer fields and all the games can happen in a short time period.

The new location of the tournament seems to trouble some of the members of the team, but Labbato is confident that a change like this will not affect the the performance of his players.

“This year’s team has all the components that are required to win a long tournament,” Labbato said. “We have depth, very good defenders and goalkeepers, creative midfielders and dangerous forwards. That is the kind of recipe you need to compete in a long tournament like that.”

Not including their performance in the PepsiCo Showdown, the team has a current record of 7-2-1, and three out of the eight games played were against teams that are ranked top ten in the state of Illinois, Labbato said.

Not only does the team have a competitive advantage from already playing against extremely skilled teams, but they also have a technical advantage due to the grass fields of the new location, which is what the team practices on, he said.

Some good can be found in the location change, but there is a negative side effect that is unavoidable. The large fan section, or LT Hooligans, that has notoriously carried the team in the past will not be as present this year, LT Hooligans leader Erin Smothers ‘17 said.

“The players on the varsity team will want to play better when they know they are being supported by fellow classmates,” Smothers said. “It was a big atmosphere that helped them win it last year.”

Not only the fans themselves, but the coaches also see disadvantages with less student support, Labbato said.

“I am sad to see it go because the advantages of having [the tournament] as a home game can’t [be] put into words” Labbato said. “Having hundreds of kids out at the games catapulted us into the finals many times just by sheer adrenaline of the student section.”

The boys varsity soccer team will not be completely abandoned, however, because the main Hooligans will go and show their support, Smothers said.

Problems aside, the team now sets their focus on nothing else but to walk away as winners, including boys varsity goalie Matt Vear ‘17.

“I feel pretty good, even with the possibility of having less fans cheering us on,” Vear said. “I think we will perform the same way and play our game.”

The stakes are high as the varsity boys enter the battlegrounds of the PepsiCo Showdown tournament, and Labbato shares his pregame nerves about the importance of this tournament.

“There are a lot of good teams going into the Pepsi Showdown and people judge your team by how well you do there,” Labbato said. “It’s a dangerous tournament because everyone is so good in it.”

It turns out the pregame jitters Labbato and the team were facing did not phase them. After their first game on Saturday, Sept. 10, the boys walked away with a shootout win against West Chicago, thanks to the three saves Vear made in the goal, after a tied score of 2-2 in regular time. Now, it is up to the team to continue their success and hope for the same outcome as last year.

“That win gave us confidence,” Vear said. “Now we have the confidence to keep rolling to the championship”.