New Central Baptist College head soccer coach Phillip Bohn and assistant Drew Jones have been busy trying to put together their first recruiting class, hoping to make it a cornerstone to building up the school’s program. As part of that effort, Bohn watched on Thursday as Bryant Hornets senior Corey Laisure inked a letter of intent to be a part of that group.
Laisure, the son of Brian and Pam Laisure, starts at a center-mid position for the Hornets who are unbeaten in South Conference play entering Friday’s match at Lake Hamilton.
Bryant head coach Brett Haugh acknowledged that the center-mid players are key for the success of the team.
“We ask them to play both ends of the field and pretty much control the game,” Haugh noted. “If we can control the game there, then we can be successful.”
Laisure will rejoin former Hornets Justin Travis and Chase Stuart at CBC, which had an impact on his decision to sign with the Mustangs.
“I kind of got the foot in the door with that,” Laisure noted. “Travis said Coach Bohn’s a really good coach. That kind of convinced me to look at CBC and consider it an option.
“I got calls from John Brown University and I looked at Ouachita Baptist,” he mentioned. “Those were about the only other choices I was really considering. I visited Ouachita and Central Baptist and what I liked about Central Baptist was that they have smaller classrooms and it’s a lot more student-oriented.”
“They’re getting a hard worker, a kid that’ll do anything you ask him to do,” Haugh said. “He can play pretty much wherever you need him to play. He’s an overall good kid.”
Bohn added, “Our ultimate goal is to bring in a really good recruiting class to move CBC soccer forward in a positive direction. We’re really excited to have Corey. We feel like he represents what we’re looking for. A guy that’s going to work really hard.
“He’s pretty excited to join us I think,” the coach continued. “He’s going to continue to get better and better with us, we feel like, and have a positive impact in the program and at the school. I think that’s important.
“So we feel really fortunate that he’s decided to be part of our recruiting class, my first full recruiting class at CBC,” Bohn stated. “We just think a lot of positive things are set to come.”
Laisure started playing soccer when he was 9 and joined the Bryant Soccer Club.
“I wasn’t too sure about it to start but when I made the high school team I was like, all right,” he related. “Then last year when I started playing varsity, I really started considering college an option because soccer’s my passion.”
Asked what was the asset that put him in position to earn a scholarship offer, Laisure stated, “Leadership, maybe, because we lost a whole lot of seniors last year. We had to step up into their spots and some of us never played varsity. We had to step up and be leaders this year.”
