School is quickly approaching and that means so is the 2021 boy’s soccer season, with plenty of teams ready to return and compete on the pitch.
Daviess County:
With a strong core of upperclassmen, Daviess County boy’s soccer is looking to do some damage this season.
Amongst that strong core is Carson Thomas, a four-year starter who Head Coach Doug Sandifer expects to control the midfield.
Tanner Anderson returns after scoring 15 goals after last season, with Nate Dailey and Cody Clark anchoring the defense at center back and goalie.
Dax Sandifer will assume the center mid role while Sandifer expects jumps from Hayden Boswell and Sean Higgs after the freshman and sophomore years respectively.
“ Hayden and Sean gained a ton of experience their freshmen and sophomore years,” Sandifer said. “They have been great assets for us and I look for big seasons from both of them.”
Sandifer also expects a plethora of juniors to make an impact and help guide fellow teammates to great success on the field.
“I look for several of our juniors to have an impact this season,” Sandifer said. “Players like Andrew Alexander, Tyler Wilkerson, Braden Dant, Davian Clark, Ahmed Abdullahi among others have an chance to have big seasons along with seniors Nick Vincent, Noah Myers, AJ Hicks, Neh Reh and sophomores Conner Johnson, Eli Watkins and Jack Quisenberry.”
Daviess County has to replace a lot offensively and defensively, but Sandifer believes that following a learning curve they will be able to be just as strong as last season.
“We have to replace 40 goals and 30 assists from the graduating class,” Sandifer said. “That’s a ton of production in a shortened season in 2020. We have to find players who can score and set up goals. We are also replacing our backline with 3-5 new players who have little varsity experience. Those players will have to have a fast learning curve in order for us to be successful.”
The team will have plenty of chances to ride that learning curve early on, as the schedule for Daviess County isn’t an easy one.
Sandifer planned on this, with some more tough games being added due to joining tournaments. However, he believes that this will be good for the team.
“We have an extremely difficult schedule,” Sandifer said. “Some of it was done purposely due to the team I knew we had coming back and a few games were surprises after agreeing to play in classics out of town when you don’t know your match up initially. I think our regular season will challenge us each game and hopefully prepare us for the postseason. We have depth on our team and if we can stay fairly healthy, I think we can use that depth to our advantage.”
All in all, Sandifer said the most crucial aspect of the team is leadership. To him and his coaching staff, how the players lead one another will determine the course of the season.
“I really like this team,” Sandifer said. “It is a good group of boys who seem to play well together and get along. They are coachable and competitive. Leadership within the group is going to go a long way. We will be a good team if just the coaches lead them. We could be a really good team if the players lead it.”
Owensboro:
With more experience under its belt, Owensboro boy’s soccer is still young, but prepared for a strong season in 2021.
Conner Rhoads and Saw Thaw will lead the Red Devils as the top returners for Head Coach Ryan Haley and company.
“Top returners this season that we have coming back are senior Conner Rhoads and senior Saw Thaw,” Conner gives us size and speed in the defending 3rd which is much needed while Saw provides versatility and experience to several areas of the pitch. (Sr.) GK Logan Lanham, (Sr.) GK Alex Gonzo, (Sr.) Ta Hser, (Jr.) Jacob Obryan, (Jr.) Aiden Fregoe, (Jr.) Zach West, (So.) Sang Thang, (So.) Peter Sang, (So.) Dustin Payne, (So.) Arlo Johnson, (So.) Miles Baur, and (So.) Sammy Thawng also return to us this year providing much more overall experience going into this 2021 season than we had at this point last year.”
Owensboro will also have a trio of newcomers that could make an immediate impact in freshmen Ryan Sovar and Romer Payne as well as sophomore Alex Carpenter.
Carpenter is expected to develop under the two senior-keepers, while Sovar will start higher up on the pitch and Payne providing depth at multiple positions for the Red Devils.
Despite gaining much needed experience, the team is still young with the average age sitting at 16. However, Haley said this crew is very technical, have excellent chemistry, and are very coachable players, thus why they still have high expectations for the season.
“Overall we are a young team that is very excited yet trying to find itself,” Haley said. “The question that remains is how long the search will go on. I personally believe we are much closer to finding out who we are rather than not.”
Health is something that Haley and the team are very focused on, especially with COVID-19 still potentially playing a factor in their season.
The Red Devils plan is to stay in their team bubble as much as possible, knowing that success is dependent on their health.
The keys to that success will be the offense becoming strong with very little production from last season returning. There were bright spots in the pre-season, but they will have to replicate that in the regular season.
“Attacking and scoring is a major area of improvement needed going into 2021,” Haley said. “We have been focusing on this for some time now. We return only five goals and one assist which isn’t much and would lead some teams to overlook us going into this season. With that said, I am very happy with our 2021 (five pre-season match results) that already consist of 16 goals.”
Owensboro Catholic:
Owensboro Catholic expects to be in the thick of it when it comes to district play this season with top players returning.
There are three key leaders for Head Coach Andy Donohoe the Aces, Brody Martin, Austin Martin and Aaron Self.
“Brody Martin was our top goal scorer last season and will be a big contributor this year,” Donhoe said. “Austin Martin is the engine of the team. Aaron Self is our metronome and keeps everything ticking together.”
They also have some reinforcements, including freshman Matthew Hyland who will be involved with the varsity group as a freshman after a strong preseason.
As far as expectations go, the Aces are hoping to carry the momentum they picked up towards the end of 2020 and use that same mentality to repeat success.
“We hope to build on last season and be competitive within the district again,” Donohoe said. “We hope to play with a chip on our shoulder and push on this season.”
In order to find that success, Donohoe said that the team has be in sync in all facets of their game.
“We talk about marginal gains for our group and working hard to achieve this.” Donohoe said. “Everything we do is a collective effort to improve and if we work hard at doing this we’ll have had a successful season.”
Apollo:
With a talented upper class, Apollo’s group of juniors and seniors are poised to make a big run in district play.
Apollo returns their top-three scorers from last season in senior Harrison Bowman, junior Teranse Twihenya, and junior Eh Wah.
The Eagles defense should still be prominent as well, with seniors Elbert Moo, Trey Nally and Nee Kpaw all returning the defensive line as well.
Rounding out their key returning core is seniors Micah Green and Houston Collins, as well as junior keeper Steven Teran who will be following a breakout season in 2020.
Head Coach Ryan Poirier is thrilled with how deep the team is at each position, which will definitely help as the season goes along.
“We think he will continue to grow and have a great season,” Poirier said. “Our team is just so deep this year, it is hard to narrow down who our key contributors will be. On any given night, we have a roster full of kids able to produce.”
Apollo also has some players returning from injury as well as some reinforcements coming from last year’s JV squad.
“We have several kids coming up from our JV team last year, as well as some younger guys who will find more playing time this season,” Poirier said. “Junior Kyaw Say missed all last year with an injury, and we hope he will bring some depth to our back line. Junior Long Berly is new to the team, and could be an impact player on defense as well. Both are strong technically and smart players.”
With them able to return so much of the 2020 roster, the Eagles can try to improve in areas where they lacked last year.
To Poirier that would be separating themselves from their opponents to avoid close games or having to win via a PK shootout as well as communication.
“I would love to see us be able to put teams away when we have the chance, and show the same fight and grit we did last year when we are down or in close games,” Poirier said. “Lastly, I’d say improving our on field communication. I don’t think a team can ever be done growing there. The best teams are loud teams that constantly talk and support each other. How we grow through the season in that aspect, will be crucial in how far of a run we can make.”
As the team sat down to discuss goals before the beginning of the season a year ago, that was to reach the district and region final.
Having done that, the Eagles want to make their way back to those games, but come away victorious.
“The competition for those will be tough, but this team has the potential to be really special,” Poirier said. “Last year’s team did things, as far as advancing in the postseason, that hadn’t been done at Apollo in many, many years. It was fun and exciting, but we aren’t satisfied with that. We want to build on it and go even further this season.”
In order to do that, Poirier says first year varsity guys will need to work and develop as the season progresses, but most of all, each player must understand what their job is.
“I think that we need everyone buying in, and understanding their roles,” Poirier said. “When you have a team with over 20 kids, playing time can be tough for everyone to get. We are still early on, trying to define roles and positions. We need everyone ready to step up and play when called upon.”
