The 2024 Plainwell Varsity soccer team won the Wolverine Conference last year with a very successful season, both record-wise and team-wise. Can they repeat that same success? This soccer team has been a true competitor for winning the conference every single year. Although this may be true, this year’s team could very well be different from last year’s and its success. Five highly impactful senior soccer players are missing from last year’s roster, having moved on to college, where some are even competing at the collegiate level.

That being said, this varsity soccer team is still strong. They have two very impactful players who will have to be a significant part of the team this year for them to have a successful season. Senior Captains, Kegan Braybrooks(‘26) and Nate Launt(‘26), are leading the team by example. Kegan is a forward and an outside wing. Kegan is coming off a German hat-trick from the East Lansing tournament. This means scoring three goals in the first half of a game, which is very impressive; he is the only person on the varsity team who has completed this accomplishment.

The varsity team recently took second place at this tournament. They did this all while missing several key players from their roster, such as Nate Launt, who was unable to attend due to illness. Nate is a Forward and a Midfielder, making the game go smoother with his quick decision-making and impressive goal scoring. He will have a very significant role this year for the soccer team, and his leadership is expected to have a substantial impact on the game.

That being said, a potential worry for Nate Launt(‘26) is he is playing two fall sports this season, football and soccer, playing both of these sports could be a potential conflict on the soccer field for Launt, when asked if he feels that playing both sports football and soccer will have a major impact on the team he responded with “No,I don’t feel like it will affect my game play on the soccer field at all and I believe playing both is gonna be good because it gets me in shape and makes me more physical for soccer.” Launt had some words to say on Plainwell’s soccer team’s behalf, which was “We here, We here.” This confidence is what Plainwell varsity soccer needs from its captain.

Kegan Braybrooks(‘26) seems very optimistic about this season for the trojans when asked in an interview who he feels has to step up on this team he quickly responded with “Logan Swartz(‘27) “He’s just a junior but he’s already showing why he belongs on the varsity level, I truly feel he is a top 5 player on this varsity soccer team, I feel like he can hang with any competition that we face.” Swartz is a midfielder with great play making and physicality his play  so far on the soccer field has shown to have a massive effect on Plainwell varsity soccer’s success this year.

It will be very interesting to see what happens for Plainwell’s soccer team this year. Nate and Kegan feel very confident about where the Plainwell varsity soccer team is. With all this going on at Plainwell varsity soccer I think it’s safe to say that this year’s varsity soccer team will have a very successful season and maybe even have the same success as last year and win the conference and make it far in districts under the leadership of Kegan Braybrooks(‘26) and Nate Launt(‘26) anything is possible for this team this year. While this year looks very promising for Plainwell soccer, no one knows what next year will hold. This is because there are 10+ seniors graduating this year. Only time will tell for the future of Plainwell varsity soccer.