Henry Kalungi said he wants to instill a “culture” of healthy competition in his first full season as the head coach of the Fort Mill High boys’ soccer program.
Kalungi was part of the coaching staff last year as Fort Mill earned a Class 5A state championship last May. This spring, Kalungi said he expects every opponent to give Fort Mill its best shot.
“We’re not in a rebuild season,” he said. “When you’re defending champions, everyone is going to give it their all. … We want to build a culture that everybody will want to be a part of.”
Kalungi will start almost from scratch following last year’s playoff run. Fort Mill lost 11 seniors from last year’s team. The departures from last season include standouts like state Gatorade Boys Soccer Player of the Year Braden Gritz, fellow attacker Ryan Seitz, and goalkeeper Nicky Gritz, who signed a contract with the Charlotte Independence academy team.
Fort Mill, who is 3-4 so far this season, gave up four second-half goals in a 4-2 home loss to non-region opponent Dutch Fork on Tuesday, March 4.
Junior Juan Gomez scored both first-half goals for Fort Mill before Dutch Fork’s Max Werner and Wyatt Moore both hit braces in the second half to earn the comeback win on the road. The Silver Foxes improved to 2-2 on the year.
Kalungi said he’s focusing on developing a style of play.
“It’s one of the most important things,” he said. “We don’t want to compromise on that. Sometimes, the score won’t come off the way we want, but we need to continue building and playing the way we want to play. I’m not worried about this. We’ll watch the film and learn where we made mistakes.”
Fort Mill started brightly, with Gomez receiving a ball through the middle in space. The junior’s left-footed shot beat goalkeeper Jonas Bryson down low in the third minute. Gomez doubled the lead with seconds left in the half when he smacked a 35-yard looping shot over Bryson’s head from the middle of the field.
But Dutch Fork responded quickly after the halftime break. Werner stole a loose ball from a Fort Mill defender playing out of the back, then finished low past goalkeeper Stanley Marshall to cut the lead in half.
Werner tied the game at 2-2 just a few minutes later when he latched onto a bouncing ball over the middle, fending off two Fort Mill defenders en route to a smart shot into the bottom corner. Moore helped Dutch Fork take the lead, scoring directly from a corner kick on a knuckleball that Marshall couldn’t keep out in the 54th minute.
And Moore put the cap on the game in the 80th minute with a breakaway goal following a botched Fort Mill corner as the Yellow Jackets tried to equalize late.
“I’m proud of the boys, as some of the things we saw in the first half are how they play in practice,” he said. “These game give us an opportunity to see where the players are and what they can do. They will come back and do well.”
The Yellow Jackets begin their Region 3-5A schedule at home against Catawba Ridge on Tuesday, March 11. Fort Mill will then travel to Clover Friday, March 14. Both games kick off at 7 p.m.
