Conley takes over as LHS boys soccer head coach

Kyle Conley was recently named as the head coach for the Louisburg High School boys soccer team and takes over for longtime coach Ben York, who resigned his post last fall.

Kyle Conley has spent the last several months focusing on molding and guiding the Louisburg High School girls soccer team through its first season.

It was a special run for the girls as they won a regional title and finished the year with 14 wins. Now, his focus has shifted a little bit to the school’s other soccer squad.

Conley was recently hired to take over Louisburg’s boys soccer program following the resignation of former coach Ben York last fall. This is the first time the program has had a change at the head coaching spot as York was with the program since its inception – 13 years ago. Also like with the girls program, Michael Pickman will serve as the assistant coach.

“Taking over the boys team is going to be a lot of fun,” Conley said. “It is different than the girls team because coach York has established Louisburg boys soccer as a quality program. I am excited to see what they bring to the table and to get us started. We will have a lot of the same principals as the girls.”

The Wildcat boys are coming off a successful run in the postseason as well. Louisburg won the program’s sixth regional title and won three of the last four matches to finish the year with a 7-11-2 record.

The bad news is the Wildcats lost six seniors, including several on the defensive end, which is one of the areas Conley would like to address over the summer along with competing in a tough Frontier League.

“My goal is for us to compete in each and every league game,” Conley said. “They went 1-9-2 last year in league if I am not mistaken. For us to reach the goals I have for this program, we need to have success in the Frontier League. I understand that is easier said than done, but we will put in the work and see were that get us.

“There are some really quality players returning and I am excited to start working with them. I am concerned with the amount of defensive players that graduated, but the junior varsity had a lot of success and it’s time those players step in for us. We need to have the mind set of the next guy up.”

Conley began working with his new team starting last week and they will meet twice a week for summer workouts. He will then conduct a week-long team camp starting July 11 and hopes to use that time to implement the changes he wants to the program.

“We will focus on technical aspects of the game, but it will be way more intense then the ladies program,” Conley said. “I want the boys to play a possession style game, but much quicker than they have in the past. There are some players with a lot of skill and they need to be the catalyst of our team and how we play.”