Burnet boys soccer using summer league to jumpstart new season

CAPTION: Ricardo Flores sees a seam and makes a run for it. Photo by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography

While other sports are ending summer league play, the Highland Lakes Soccer League is just getting started.

Area high school programs are meeting each Thursday to play 7 versus 7 matches at the Burnet Middle School stadium at 7 p.m. The boys teams from Burnet, Lampasas and Marble Falls make up the league.

“The whole purpose of the league is to have them come to get touches,” Burnet boys soccer head coach and league co-director Benjamin Boorman said. “Soccer requires repetition and touches. The more you don’t touch a ball, the more it goes away.”

The high school soccer season runs from January to March and preparations for the new season begin right after the Thanksgiving holiday.

“April until November is a long time to go without touching a ball,” Boorman said. “When you’re playing against other people, there’s an increase in competition level that gets the group going.”

Burnet has three teams in the league. The players are high school students. The program said good-bye to 16 players, who graduated in 2025.

“The majority of the varsity team were seniors,” the coach said.

He is projecting to have 55 players in the program with 24 on the varsity roster.

“Anymore than that you can’t play the kids as much as you’d like to,” he said.

In addition, it’s possible to have two subvarsity teams since many programs also have two teams. Boorman said he’s happy to have three matches in one evening if it means giving the Bulldogs what is so invaluable – touches.

“We’ll start seeing that as more of a norm,” he said of having three teams in the program. “In Burnet, we’ve had a little more success each year.”

So Boorman views this summer league as opportunities: to build rapport, work on skills and create friendships. In essence, those are building blocks for a team that help pave the way to accomplishing much more.

Though the varsity roster spots aren’t decided based on summer league, new players, many of which are freshmen, have opportunity to show coaches their skills and how they can mesh with veterans.

Ultimately, he’d like to build upon what has already been accomplished. The Bulldogs finished third in District 25-4A play last season, ending the season with a 3-0 loss to San Antonio Davenport a year after beating the Wolves in double overtime for their first bi-district crown. Burnet has advanced to the playoffs the last three seasons.

“I’d like my athletes to play football,” he said. “Cause it helps any program. When we play teams that have a physical presence we get pushed around. I’d like to see deeper playoff runs.”

Boorman noted that when he first came to Burnet, the area had a co-ed league that played in Marble Falls. The following summer, he established a boys league. He has invited Killeen Chaparral, Lago Vista and other programs to come to Burnet, but they’ve declined based on the distance. Still, Chaparral coaches took the model and recreated it in Killeen where Killeen Independent School District soccer teams are competing against one another.

That illustrates a desire Boorman has that’s a foundational principle of his program – giving back and helping others succeed, too.

After the Fourth of July floods that impacted the Hill Country, he reached out to the Kerrville Independent School District coaches to let them know the Bulldogs will be headed their way to help. The Antlers lost head coach Reece Zunker and his family to the floods. They were camping along the Guadalupe River in Hunt when rising waters swept them away, according to reports.

“We intend on giving back to our community and raising awareness of the floods,” Boorman said. “It can happen to any one of us. We’re all together, we’ll always remember those who passed away.”

CAPTION: Dwight Lopez reads the situation as he controls the ball. Photo by Martelle Luedecke/Luedecke Photography