Three hundred and seventy-two days before Santa Fe High School’s final boys soccer game of the 2023-24 season, first-year head coach Morgan Dall’Acqua watched his new team practice from the stands.
“I watched a group of young men who didn’t respect the coaching staff and a coaching staff that didn’t respect them,” Dall’Acqua said.
The 40-year-old coach, a Santa Fe alumnus, knew there was plenty of work to be done in building a winning boys’ soccer program at his alma mater, a team that went 5-8-4 the season prior.
One year and a district championship later, Dall’Acqua and his staff of other Santa Fe Raiders alumni rebuilt the team and the community’s love for soccer.
In a transformation that Dall’Acqua referred to as the “unification of our soccer community,” he started his coaching tenure with a focus on bringing large alumni associations, local recreation centers and booster clubs on board to support the team in different ways.
“I want every 6-year-old that touches a soccer ball at Alachua Rec Center or at the High Springs Rec Department to never want to play anywhere other than Santa Fe,” Dall’Acqua said.
Dall’Acqua knew, however, that the process of building a successful culture started with having a successful team on the field.
Although the team struggled in its previous two seasons, both the players and the coaching staff were confident in what the Raiders could accomplish.
“We’ve always had individual talent on the team, but this year has been more of a journey together,” team captain Paul Morgan said. “It’s been revitalizing having someone to actually lead the program and put their time and effort into the players.”
Assistant coach Caleb Hudkins emphasized that point.
“The talent was already there,” Hudkins said. “We had just to put the pieces together and get them the support needed to motivate them game after game.”
After months of training, preparation and recruitment, Dall’Acqua and the staff got to kick off a monumental season for the boys’ soccer program.
Although the season started with a 5-3 loss to Buchholz in early November, Santa Fe gained momentum with each game that followed.
Less than a month after that loss, a dominant 7-1 win over Williston High School pushed Santa Fe to a record of 5-2, matching the previous season’s win total with two months left to go in the season.
As the season went on, the players grew to trust Dall’Acqua and his passionate approach to coaching.
“He has helped me grow as a person by letting me see the reality in tough situations,” freshman Caleb Freeman said. “That losing is just another big reason to keep working and grind to get better.”
Ending the regular season with a 3-0 win against Columbia High School, Dall’Acqua set lofty expectations for his team going into the playoff season.
The team hoped to obtain its first Class 4A District 2 championship since 2021, with local rival Eastside standing in its way in the first round.
The Raiders won that game 8-0 and took down Suwannee four days later to claim that coveted district title, a display of the progress Dall’Acqua and his staff had made with the team in just one season.
“To take a team that last season has five wins and the season before that has three wins… winning the district title, it’s a huge accomplishment for them,” Dall’Acqua said.
Entering the regional playoffs came with a certain pressure, as the boys’ soccer program had never advanced past the regional semifinal stage in its history.
The first challenge came Tuesday, as the Raiders hosted the South Walton Seahawks in the regional quarterfinals of the Class 4A tournament.
After a poor start and an injury to junior captain Paul Morgan, Santa Fe found itself down 2-0 at halftime in front of a packed home crowd.
The Raiders brought a goal back to make the score 2-1, but that became the final score, as Morgan’s return to the game and a hard-fought second half were not enough to bring Santa Fe the victory.
“When you have a family environment like we do, you want to be out there fighting with your family to overcome the competition you’re facing,” Morgan said.
Although the loss meant the end of a long season for Santa Fe, Dall’Acqua and his staff were not disappointed in the efforts of their team.
“There’s 109 teams in 4A and that means 108 teams are going to go home feeling like they didn’t do enough,” Dall’Acqua said postgame. “This thing — this success — it can be few and far between and you don’t know when you’re going to get to embrace it or when it’s going to be ripped away from you.”
Dall’Acqua, his staff, the players and the school believe the 2023-24 season was just the start of the success of the boys’ soccer program.
Athletic Director Michele Faulk and other school faculty were present for the final game and recognized the way the community had rallied around the soccer team throughout the season.
Faulk especially appreciated that, during the school year, Dall’Acqua promised to raise the GPA requirement by 0.125 points each year for a player to be able to join his soccer team
“It’s always refreshing to know that they’re stressing the importance of student-athlete, that they’re a student first, an athlete second,” Faulk said. “He’s got an entire staff on board that just get it… Things are definitely improving.”
Emotions were high for those in attendance at the Raiders’ final playoff game, an unexpected result for many families and fans.
“I hated it [the loss],” Faulk said. “Because I saw a lot of tears on those sidelines. But when it hurts people that much, it can drive the team to work even harder.”
Dall’Acqua now looks forward to another offseason with returning players and a new crop of freshmen. Still, he has an eye farther down the horizon, hoping that next generation will want to play for his program.
“It's not just the four-year student-athletes that I'm doing my part to focus on… My goal for the program is that it will be a self-fulfilling group,” Dall’Acqua said. “That's not just all the incoming freshmen next season, that's the incoming second grader. Our goal is really to build this thing for years to come and continue to build on the success that we had this season.”
