A familiar face will be patrolling the sidelines for Hillsboro boys soccer games this fall.
Chris Schacht has returned as head coach of the Hawks, whom he coached to 250 wins in 22 years in his first stint. Schacht stepped down as coach of both the Hillsboro boys and girls soccer teams in 2020 and stepped up to being the school’s activities director until 2024. Schacht retired from being AD that year and was a volunteer assistant for the
Hillsboro boys in 2025. He’ll be assisted by Victoria Jackson and Jess Jacaty. Jackson was hired recently to be the head coach of the Hillsboro girls soccer team. She was an assistant for six years.
Schacht said he was at practices and games with the boys team around 75 to 80 percent of the time, and he ran a few practices last year when the Hawks finished with an overall record of 7-15-2 and had a Jefferson County Activities Association mark of 2-2. Perryville (16-5, 4-0) is the defending JCAA champion and the Pirates finished third in the state in Class 2.
“I knew we had a lot of work to do. I didn’t like what I saw in practices last year,” Schacht said. “That wasn’t my call. I’m getting to see the kids play more to their strengths. I’m not coming in completely cold. I’ve been able to see a lot more the last month-plus and see where they can play position-wise. We’re finding out some of the guys are better than we thought.”
The two biggest areas Hillsboro needs to fill are goal scoring and stopping goals. Andrew Carey led the Hawks with 24 goals last season, and goalkeeper Carter Hutson played in the bulk of minutes. Both graduated this spring.
“I think we will be a pretty balanced team without any true superstars,” Schacht said. “I expect all of our seniors to show leadership to the underclassmen. I think if we are looking at who will lead statistically, I would say Cesar Avalos, Eli Eimer, Jesse Rader and Chase Kirkpatrick have the best chance to do so based on where they will end up playing the most minutes. They all have a different skill set, so we hope to see a good mix with them working together and try to keep opponents off balance.
“We want to try and frustrate teams into making poor decisions leading to turnovers and capitalize on those. We are really working on playing within the system that will benefit us the most and it relies a lot on being unselfish and cohesive as a unit.”
Avalos, Eimer and Rader are seniors, Kirkpatrick is a sophomore.
Seniors Brayden Maibes and Mason Wahl will be leaned on heavily to keep the midfield organized, linking the back line and attacking players up front. Senior Logan Partney can play midfield or in the backfield.
The Hawks will play with three midfielders in a triangle formation. They have the middle two-thirds of the field. The attacking midfielder will play more like a forward at times. Kirkpatrick is a hybrid attacker/midfielder. Sophomores Tyler Rader and Blake Swafford and senior Lucas Burle can play midfield. The Raders are brothers.
“We can move him around anywhere,” Schacht said of Kirkpatrick.
Senior back Dylan Heitert was a second-team all-conference selection last year, the only player on the team to receive postseason honors. Schacht said the other players who will rotate on the backline, include senior Cale Adams, Burle, juniors Bryce Ludwig and Corey Phelps and sophomores Easton Martin and Dylan Martz.
“Dylan’s grown up a lot physically and mentally,” Schacht said. “He’s shown a lot of leadership over the summer. He’s not afraid to talk to anybody. If the players always hear the same stuff from the coaches, they turn a deaf ear to it, so it’s better when players are holding each other accountable and Dylan’s one of those guys. He sticks out in that capacity.”
Patrick Carey, Andrew’s brother, logged 672 minutes and had a goals against average of 2.62 as the backup. He’s starting in goal and being backed up by sophomore Ryan Beck. Senior Aiden Mace is a third keeper, who can play midfield too.
“Patrick’s got good size. I think he’ll be fine,” Schacht said.
Practice for fall sports begins Monday, Aug. 10. Hillsboro kicks off its season Thursday, Aug. 27 at home at 6 p.m. against North County.
“We are still trying to add more players to the program to help fill out the JV roster as we are a few short of our goal,” Schacht said. “Being better as we approach the postseason has always been a goal for our program. I’m trying to stay extra flexible the first half of the season putting players in different positions to find the best mix. This will help us add depth at positions that we feel need it and possibly find out if we have something in a player we didn’t know at the start.”
Like the baseball and basketball teams in the JCAA, boys soccer will begin playing conference opponents twice a year. Instead of four games against JCAA teams, it’s now eight.
“It’s probably done best in baseball because you can’t throw your ace back to back,” Schacht said. “I’m on the fence about it, but it’s only four games that we’ve scheduled in the past. I don’t want to judge it until we play it.”