Don’t ask new Head Coach Shaun Foster to predict how his SMUS Blue Jags will stack up to the competition this Senior Boys Soccer season. It’s too early to tell.
“We will let you know at the end of the season,” smiles Foster, who assumes the reins of the team this fall as longtime Head Coach Evan Fryer takes a step back. “It’s hard to say, but we think we’ve got a strong group here – a good foundation that Mr. Fryer has left us to work with.”
The 2025 Blue Jags are a relatively even mix of Grade 11 and 12 players. They will begin their season this week with a Lower Island Tier 1 league home game against Oak Bay on Thursday (3:45 pm) followed by playing host to the 10-team Independent Schools Athletic Association (ISAA) tournament on Friday and Saturday.
Coming off a 2024 campaign in which SMUS finished second to Mark Isfeld among Vancouver Island AA teams and 11th in BC, the Blue Jags will be looking for players to step up to fill the void created by the graduations of solid defender Marcus Lam and lanky midfielder Davis Hardy, the latter now playing basketball at the University of Calgary. Another hole was left when athletic striker Will Zielinski transferred out of the school to pursue his first sport of baseball at Vauxhaul Academy in Alberta.
Foster says it’s too early to determine who will emerge as the Blue Jags’ leaders this season. The team only finalized its roster on Sept. 8. But he believes this new group’s strength will be the ability to play a fast-paced brand of soccer, controlling the tempo from the midfield. However, “we also have some players out wide who are pacey.”
A core group of returnees – including goalkeeper Rayan Shariaty, who turned in a strong season as a Grade 11 – and some newcomers who are solid athletes leaves Foster optimistic.
“This group looks like it can play with pace,” he says. “It’s going to be about knowing when and how to best use that pace. But I think we’ve got some guys with good football brains.”
Foster doesn’t want to single out any players just yet. “I don’t know who will be the difference-makers. I want to see who emerges,” he says. “But we don’t want to be too reliant on any one player anyway.”
The Blue Jags’ schedule works well in terms of letting the team develop and players emerge into roles as the season progresses. SMUS and local rival Lambrick Park are the only two AA teams on the Lower Island, so both are guaranteed spots in the Island Championship tournament, scheduled for Nov. 3 and 4 at Carihi in Campbell River.
The Blue Jags are again playing in the highly competitive Lower Island Tier 1 league, along with Lambrick and AAA squads Oak Bay, Reynolds, Claremont, Belmont, and Royal Bay. The key date on that league schedule for SMUS is Tuesday, Oct. 14, when it will visit Lambrick Park. The winner of that game will be the South’s No. 1 seed for Islands.
“The Tier 1 league will be very good,” says SMUS Assistant Coach Jamie Yorath. “The way our schedule is set up, it kind of lets us feel things out in league play. But obviously that Lambrick Park game will be huge.”
The top teams from Islands will advance to the BC AA tournament, Nov. 17 to 19 in Burnaby. The Blue Jags have qualified for the provincial tournament for the past three years. In fact, in Fryer’s 13 seasons at the helm, the team only missed the BCs once, and the Jags captured the provincial title in 2016.
Foster and Yorath are well-accustomed to working with each other on the pitch. In fact, Foster, who played centre back for UVic from 2004 to 2008 and also coached at SMUS previously, coached Yorath as a SMUS player from 2006 to 2010.
This week’s ISAA tournament includes Shawnigan Lake School, Collingwood, West Point Grey Academy, Aberdeen Hall, Southpointe Academy, St. George’s School, Brentwood College, Mulgrave and Glenlyon-Norfolk School. The Jags open with three games Friday – at 9:45 am vs. Aberdeen Hall, at 12:15 pm vs. West Point Grey, and at 4:30 pm vs. Shawnigan.
Tournament schedule and standings
“The tournament is part of our preseason and it will be valuable in helping to see which players can fill certain roles in different circumstances,” Foster says. “The focus for us will be on our league play, Islands and getting to BCs.”
