With the cold winter nights and gloomy weather, boredom may start to set in for many teenagers. While it may seem hard to find entertainment on a cold winter night, Vetta indoor soccer, which offers boys, girls, and coed soccer leagues that any high schooler can sign up for with friends, has started to fill up many high schoolers’ time and become part of their weekend routine. Late-night games filled with laughter and competitiveness are a great way to stay active. The growth of Vetta soccer over the past seasons has been exponential. With a no-stakes league and plenty of opportunities for anyone to play, it is truly a one-of-a-kind experience for many high schoolers in the area.

Vetta Sports was originally founded in St. Louis in 1988 and has continued to grow ever since. Not only is Vetta soccer a fun activity for people to do, but it is also good practice during the off-season for many athletes. Joining a team gives great opportunities for people to improve their skills, learn new ones and bond with their friends.

Junior Connor Boles and his friends recently formed a coed team called The Robots. Once a week, they compete at the Vetta Sports facility off Manchester against other teams of similar age in a combined league.

“It was a spontaneous idea to create the team. We [saw] a lot of other people around school form teams, and we wanted to join in on the fun,” Boles said. “It’s been a great opportunity for us. We get to hang out before and after games as well, so it’s an opportunity to get all our friends together and do something fun.”

With Vetta still being a growing trend, there are many opportunities to play teams full of players from West High. Senior Julia Kiffer plays on a coed team nicknamed S&R, formed by a group of current seniors over two years ago. They also recently beat The Robots 15-0.
“It was our sophomore year, and my friends [and I] were bored. We heard about an opportunity to create our own soccer team [at Vetta] from some of the upperclassmen at the time,” Kiffer said. “We decided to create our own team for fun and include all our friends, even the ones who don’t play soccer. It’s been really fun and a way for us to hang out together, and something we’ve done every year since.”

Hosting many new players, the opportunity of playing a new sport and new positions takes a learning curve to understand the basics. Junior Evan Vitiello was given the challenge of being the goalkeeper on The Robots.

“It’s my first time playing [in Vetta], and I never played competitive soccer. It’s sometimes intimidating going against a team with lots of real players,” Vitiello said. “It was very difficult to play goalie for the first time with zero experience, but I’ve been getting better every game. It’s all about the fun anyway. Nobody cares about the wins or losses, even if we lose by 15.”

Although it’s all for fun in the end, the games still get competitive. Even those who don’t play soccer want to win regardless of the non-competitive stakes. Senior Tyler Peters and his all-boys team, Dogs Gotta Eat, recently took on senior Drew Bauman and his team, the Tickle Monsters, in a heated matchup, resulting in many penalties and even ejections.

“It was a very competitive game. We all know each other out there, which is what makes us want to beat them even more,” Peters said. “It was probably the most fun game out of the entire season so far, with how competitive it was. We are all athletes out there with a competitive nature, and any friendships can stay out of the game. With that said, nothing that happens during the games is personal.”

“[Although] we don’t always take it seriously, we still want to win, especially against a team with a bunch of guys we know and are friends with. That’s what fuels that competitive spirit and urge to win, and [it] even causes things to get heated sometimes,” Bauman said. “In the end, we are all still friends, and nothing that actually happens out there means anything.”

With two winter Vetta sessions in each year, and the first one coming to an end in early January, there is currently an opportunity for anyone and their friends to put a team together and compete out on the field. The camaraderie and memories that Vetta can provide are an experience every high schooler deserves to enjoy.

“We had a lot of fun during the first session for the past month and plan to sign up again,” Vitiello said. “Our favorite games are the ones against teams filled with people from our own school. It’s always the most fun being able to compete against our other friends we see around the halls, and we hope that more kids from our school decide to join the league.”