Dons soccer constructed on laborious work, protection and enjoyable

By Mike Warren
Sport Editor

Continued from earlier week

MARSHFIELD – Before we take a better take a look at this 12 months’s squad, we have to make clear one thing from the earlier article.

We talked about in our Oct. 8 version the Columbus Catholic boys’ soccer staff was “still seeking that elusive trip to the WIAA State Tournament.”

Not true. The Dons did advance to the state event in 2006, below the course of Mike Miller.

Columbus misplaced a Div. 3 State Semifinals match to Thomas More, 1-0, in time beyond regulation. Lukas Boehning had 8 saves in aim for the Dons that day.

What we meant to say was that the Dons haven’t but gone to state below present coach, Jeff Edwards.

That would possibly change this season.

“This year, we’ve got a good balance of players,” Edwards informed us on Oct. 1. “We have good seniors, good juniors, loads of sophomores contributing they usually’re rising as a staff because the season goes.

“We’re getting youthful gamers in there to get some expertise and it’s been a curler coaster proper now, simply due to accidents.

“This has been a loopy 12 months for accidents for us. I’ve by no means had a staff that has had so many accidents on the identical time. We’ve had three video games, I believe, the place we had 4 starters out, one recreation the place we had 5 starters out, they usually simply stored preventing. We both gained these video games or we tied or we stored them shut. Right now, we’re nonetheless down two starters and I’m hoping to get them again by playoffs. That could be a plus for us to get all people wholesome on the sector enjoying on the identical time. I believe it could possibly be a particular playoff run if it occurs.

“We have twenty players this year. I would like to have 22, 23 ideally.
“I’d say a lot of schools, on a varsity team, would have eighteen to twenty, and then they’d have a JV with that many. In our school, we have, say, a hundred-sixty kids total and that’s split between cross country, soccer and football, so it’s hard to get a JV team also when we have only so many boys to go around. Maybe sometime down the line we’d be fortunate enough to get thirty kids out and we could do some JV scheduling to let some freshmen get some extra experience, but having at least eighteen is nice for practicing and for games.

“I don’t want to recruit. You can get in trouble by doing that kind of thing, you know, pilfering players from other schools or other sports. A lot of it is we have fun. I mean, the kids that are playing, they like to come out and have fun and I like to have fun, but we also like to be successful, so there’s a line there between when it’s time to work and when it’s time to have fun. And the kids that we get, they’re out there for a reason and I think they’re all having a good time doing it. If we could get a few more players, that would be awesome. There’s kids every year that are on the fence of maybe trying soccer or maybe not trying soccer and going to run cross country or play football. At this school, we just want kids to do something. I mean, do three sports. That would be ideal. The more kids out for sports, the better for our school. We just want those kids to be able to have as many opportunities as they can. If I can get an athlete to come out for soccer, I can teach him the sport. I can teach them skills. That’s what I’m looking for. If I can get a good athlete to come out for soccer, the coaches and myself can teach them the game.

“There’s maybe a quarter of the team that’s playing club soccer and they play during the summer. Most of these kids are just tremendous athletes and we coach them up. We teach them tactics, we teach them skills, and then they go out there and they do that on the field. So, I’ll look at the film once, and then I’ll watch it again and make clips of things we did well, things we did wrong, and I’ll send it to the players and we learn from mistakes and we learn from successes, and I think that’s been the cornerstone of the program.”

Edwards says the previous sporting adage nonetheless rings true right now — protection wins championships.

“In my coaching history, I have had some really, really solid defenses, and that’s how I like to build. We build with defense and we’ve always been a counter-attacking team. We start in the back. We make sure everything is stable and set back there. You know, we’re not going to give up a lot of goals in the season and we spring forward on counter attacks and transitions and try to get goals that way,” Edwards informed us. “Since I’ve started, I’ve been having some tremendous goal scorers. It helps to have kids who can put the ball in the net, but I think it starts on the back having a good defense and a nice goalie that’s an active kid and not afraid to dive.”

Edwards has that in present goalie Carter Sommer.

“Big, tall kid. He’s got long arms. He’s getting everything in the air. He’s not afraid to dive. He makes incredible saves. It’s tough to score on him,” he added.

The Columbus protection additionally options junior defender Ben Weiland.

“Tough, fast, takes great angles. Another kid that’s hard to get around,” stated Edwards.

Midfielders embody senior Brady Zimmermann and junior Cole Wallace.
Forwards are seniors Mason Edwards and Cade Jansen.

“The two of them have been scoring at a pretty good clip, so it’s nice to have two options for teams to have to mark to try to stop,” Edwards stated.

“We have some juniors and sophomores playing other roles that are supportive roles, but without them none of this happens.”

That checklist contains juniors Xan Rodriguez and Elijah Wolf, together with sophomores David Thill, Rocco Maher and Colin Stocks.

As for the upcoming postseason, the Dons discover themselves within the Arcadia Sectional this fall.

“We had been in the southern part of that sectional and now this year we’ve been moved up to the northern part of the sectional, so we have teams that we don’t normally play,” Edwards acknowledged.

Columbus has been paired with Amery, Barron, Cumberland, Newman, Northland Lutheran, Northland Pines, Regis/McDonell Central Catholic, Three Lakes/Phelps and Washburn.

“It’ll be something new this year. I don’t know how those teams travel,” Edwards stated. “I don’t know their style of play. Usually we’d only see them in a Sectional Final, if we happen to make it, so it’s a little different this season and we’ll see how that shakes out.

“[I’ve] been kind of looking at different teams’ records up there and I think we are competitive for maybe getting a one or a two seed in that part of the regional, so if we continue the way we’re going, it would be nice to have them travel to us and have home field advantage.”