Warrenton Head Soccer Coach John Schulte is happy with his team’s performance in the second full week of practice.

He just wishes he had more players to coach.

“Our numbers aren’t where I hoped they would be,” Schulte said. “It makes things tough overall because you’re trying to find playing time for everybody.”

Entering his 13th season with the program, Schulte has seen about every scenario at this time of the year.

And he knows 22 players don’t make for an ideal program.

“With only 20 kids or so, you have to take away some games because that’s a lot of games to play with kids doing double duty, so that definitely hurts the program,” he said. “We want those younger kids to play in a bunch of games and get that experience, so we hope when school starts we’ll get a few more kids to come out so we can keep the entire J.V. schedule.”

Schulte said an ideal number is at least 35 kids, which allows him to field a full junior-varsity team that gets younger players plenty of time on the field.

“Other than that, the kids are working hard so we’re looking for some good things,” he said.

The Warriors finished 7-15-1 last season and lost senior Dillen Mayfield, who was second on the team with 20 goals.

Junior forward Nick Forrest, however, returns after leading the Warriors with 23 goals a season ago.

“Nick Forrest up top has been doing a great job,” Schulte said. “Isaac Frederick is looking really good for us in the middle, as well, and he should help us a lot as a sophomore. He can handle the ball and really control everything back there.”

Schulte hopes a more offensive attack will also help this year’s team.

The Warriors will transition from a 4-4-2 formation to a 4-5-1, which Schulte hopes will lead to more offense on the outside.

“We have more of an offensive midfielder and defensive midfielder, so we’re not doing a stopper or anything,” he said. “We’re pushing people up the field wide, so it’s just a different formation than the kids are used to. Once they start getting the movement patterns down, I think we’re really going to be able to move the ball against teams, and that will lead to a lot of goals.”

Schulte has been impressed with senior midfielder Paul Lanigan, who has helped the coaches motivate the younger players while mastering the new system.

Lanigan scored two goals last year and will be a captain, as well.

“Defensively, Danny VanDillen is doing a great job back there motivating the defense and being a leader back there,” Schulte said. “He’s getting those guys in game-shape in the back.”

The Warriors kick off their season Aug. 19 at Fulton, which starts a five-games-in-eight-days stretch.

Schulte said he won’t have any concrete goals for his team this season.

“We just go game to game, see who we’re playing and who is healthy,” he said. “Overall, the kids are doing a great job. We’ve put in a new offense and they’ve picked it up well. We know there is going to be some learning curves as we figure out who goes where, but we know if we do a good job with it we’re going to score a lot goals.”