A tale of two seasons

Published 12:00 am Thursday, November 11, 2004

The Albert Lea High School boys’ soccer team reflected on a terrific season at its annual pot luck banquet. Combining academics with athletics, many players earned academic honors for maintaining a high grade point average during the season.

The program opened with the awarding of several unconventional awards.

Cody Otterson received the Most Consistently Colorful honor with Logan Schallock getting the nod for Occasionally Colorful. Mike Christiansen received the Best Lungs award and Dustin Demmer was named Most Determined. In the category of Most Misunderstood (for all those yellow cards), Conner Keyeski was the clear winner and Zach McGinnis was the Most Gravitationally Challenged for time spent on the turf. Twin Sam McGinnis won Most Identical while Josh Svendsen and Andy Stapleton shared Most Photogenic. Exchange student Peter Drachmann, of course, won Furthest Distance Traveled.

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The C-Squad, coached by Brian Blatti, recognized five players for their contribution to a successful first season together. Matthew Clark was selected Most Valuable Overall, Rich Needham Most Valuable Offense and Dave Anderson Most Valuable Defense. Brian Staloch received the Most Improved award with Jared Gavle getting the Coach’s Award.

Dave Frame, the junior varsity coach, reviewed his team’s winning season and recognized keeper Jake Williams as the Most Valuable Overall player with Sam McGinnis and Clay Casanova taking the Most Valuable Offense and Defense, respectively. Olaf Samuelson was named Most Improved with Spencer Dahl snagging the Coach’s Award.

Varsity coach Elia Romano reviewed the successes the senior-laden Tiger team enjoyed. The program will graduate 21 seniors this year, leaving 30 juniors, sophomores and freshmen. Each of the seniors received a commemorative plaque as a member of the squad.

&uot;It really was a tale of two seasons,&uot; noted Romano. &uot;Our overall record was 5-10-3. In the first half of season, the team went 2-7-0 and was outscored by opponents 21-5, but in the second half of the season, the team went 3-3-3 and outscored opponents 11-8.

“Through the hard work and determination of this very committed group, they managed to turn this season into something that they can look back on with pride. It is a direct result of a willingness to keep fighting, sustained intensity during practice and drastically improved play during the second half of the season. The challenge for next season is to jump out early in the season with the same level of intensity we showed in the latter half of this year.”

Graduating seniors and letterwinners include Matt Bennett, Ethan Berg, Dustin Demmer, Peter Drachmann, Tim Evans, Cory Ellertson, Brady Hanson, Ryan Hitchcock, Conner Keyeski, Nate Lombardi, Trevor Olchefske, Cody Otterson, Casey Pirsig, Olaf Samuelson, Logan Schallock, Dan Schindler, Jason Schoonover, Andy Stapleton, Andrew Stoneking, Lionel Thomas and Dustin Trail. Other letterwinners include juniors Kyle Kirsch, Jesse Tovar and Jake Williams, sophomores Clay Casanova, A.J Kortz, Sam McGinnis, Zach McGinnis and Josh Svendsen.

The varsity awards cited Senior co-captain Berg as Most Valuable Overall with co-captain Lombardi as Most Valuable Offense and Stapleton Most Valuable Defense. Svendsen was named Most Improved and Kortz received the Coach’s Award.

The Big Nine coaches had the final awards, giving all-conference honors to Lombardi and honorable mention to Berg and Stapleton.

To cap the evening, Romano named Brady Evenson, Kirsch and Williams co-captains for next season.