Individually these kids proved each and every one of them can play at the premier level. As a collective, obviously they fell short of the mark.
I don't think they deserved to go the whole season without a win. There were matches where they were definitely the better team. People may look at the stats and make statements about them, but at the end of the day they were putting the work in, showing up to training consistently and making their opposition work for the points. I think some other teams would have thrown in the towel and just forfeited games at the end.
The biggest surprise for us, at least from my perspective, was how difficult it is to recruit quality, experienced premier players when you don't already have any on your roster. I know some teams open their wallets or have special relationships with university/college coaches that push players in their direction. We had none of that. We ended up giving an amazing opportunity to a lot of young players who will be all the better for it in the future. Unfortunately that didn't translate into wins, but if even one of them ends up with a full-ride NCAA scholarship or pro contract I'd consider it a success. We could have probably built a more experienced team that would just park the bus and try to grind out results, but at the end of the day it would have still lead to relegation.
So would we do it again? Probably, but with a few lessons learned, and hopefully some solutions to complete the puzzle.
