Last year they were the champions, but this year's senior boys’ soccer team at Lisgar Collegiate Institute might not even make it to the playoffs.
The team has won just one of its five games so far, which puts Lisgar in seventh place out of eight teams.
Only the top four teams will play in the city-wide playoffs for a chance to go to the provincial finals.
Lisgar has only two games left to play before the four teams moving to the playoffs are determined. The Centretown high school plays its next game at home on Friday against Glebe Collegiate Institute.
Lisgar's last game is on Tuesday, when the team plays Beatrice-Desloges high school in Orleans.
Lisgar’s biggest challenge this year has been the first place team, St. Pius, which is undefeated. Lisgar will only play Pius again if the team qualifies for the playoffs.
Lisgar coach Colin Findlater said he is not completely discouraged by the losses.
"No one is really blowing anyone out," he said. "A lot of those games were 1-0 and then we tried to push to tie in the last ten minutes and they scored another goal."
Findlater said the team was hurt from the loss of about six key players, including the team's goalie, from the year before.
The team had gone undefeated in league play for the last two years. Last year, the team went as far as the provincial finals, said Findlater.
He hopes the senior players will help boost morale this week as they talk about their experience in the finals last year.
In a final push to be one of the top four teams that make the playoffs, Findlater said he is going to try to work on fixing the team’s major weaknesses.
"The biggest thing in terms of our team is that we’ve always defended really well, but now we’re looking at trying to create more options on the field in terms of creating space and movement from the attacking positions," said Findlater.
The major struggle for the team, said Findlater, is its ability to follow through on scoring opportunities.
"A lot of these games that we’ve lost, the other team had two or three chances — they capitalized on two. We’ve had four or five chances and just aren’t finishing.”