Last year's boys' season just ended about as crazily as it could have. We drug ourselves into playoffs that seemed doomed to be our 3rd straight without a title, but the boys just would not have any of that doomsday talk. Behind one of the smallest senior classes in STA history, we put a run on that had to have made every alum proud. BWhite kept telling them just to get to ship, and we would all just see what might happen. Get there we did, and now we need to defend it.
Gone are two senior starters who definitely impacted last year's title. Center midfielder Nick Hagenkord is now playing for the Dayton Flyers. He just flew during last year's state final, scoring all 3 state final-goals above the heads of all St. James defenders. Right back, Ben Moss, spent his day hanging out with Gatorade Player of the Year, Steven Enna, keeping him out of the net.
This year's team will offer up as many seniors as we have fielded in a year, so quite different from last year's team. We bring back 4 guys who have played varsity since their freshman year: Centerbacks, Michael Velasco and Matthew Holland (a preseason All America), defensive center midfielder, Matthew Brown (also a preseason All America), and right wing, Luke Kutey who should have a lot to say about how many goals we put in the net this season.
Junior center midfielders Tyler Stoecklein and Lucas Bartlett return for their 3rd year as varsity starters, now bringing some size to match their skill. We look for big things out of both of these two.
We love both of our outside backs. Blake Heying and Jay Johnston defend well but also can come forward to produce some attack. We are deep at both of those positions as well, giving us some flexibility to throw Jay up top if we need more attack as Matthew Johnson and Nick D'Adamo (who also might play some at left wing)both play very well. We will have our deepest team in years. Seth Castinado and PJ Hopfinger are also quite good at centerback.
The key will be for us not only to cash our reliable set pieces, but also to produce more from the run of play. We are hoping playing more 4-3-3 will contribute to that. Cole Younger makes an excellent target in the middle, but so might Bartlett or Joseph Skevington, freeing up a center midfield spot of Dan Geist, Will Cole or Pedro Arias. Sophomore Danny Gabriel is in that mix as well.
We do expect lots of competition during tryouts and early in the season for playing time. We did get 9 matches in this summer, using various combinations to see just what might click. Even though we went 9-0, we definitely were not an offensive juggernaut. Tony Schiltz and Ben Gasparovich had the two goals that stood up for the Sunflower Games championship.
We also have our fastest player, Kevin Feuerborn, who has added some size to use along that front line as well.
We bring back Derek Engel in goal without a reliable back-up, but he has looked very strong this summer. Junior Matthew Romme is in training, but he has very little experience.
We do have a couple of new quirks in the schedule. We still open with Troop Out, but the Lee's Summit tourney is washed up, so we will take part in the Titan Classic in Wichita with a chance to measure ourselves against the top teams in Wichita. The Gateway Classic will have two top brackets this year, so we will break out of the Rockhurst bracket (we will see them in Top Dawg, anyway) with CBC and Cherry Creek and a great opportunity to, perhaps, get a title match with Sandia Prep out of New Mexico if we can play well.
The EKL looks full of big fish this year, as usual. Blue Valley Northwest, defending 6A, champ looks to be a preseason favorite in Kansas once again, loaded with good players. The EKL won 6A, 5A and 1-4A last year.
This will be year 27 for STA Boys' Soccer, year 27 for Coach Ewing, year 21 for Coach Hammons, and year 10 for BWhite. And we will need all hands on deck for this one. Coach Brown and Coach Luengo will help out as well as run the Junior Varsity and and C-team, with the help of Will Ragsdale and Bryan Turner.
Let's sail.
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