Two Okotoks schools face a mountainous challenge in the Foothills Athletic Council Senior boys soccer circuit.
The Canmore Crusaders established themselves as the marquee squad last season, running the table en route to league and South Central Zone championships.
Both titles came at the expense of the Holy Trinity Academy Knights, who finished second in the Foothills Athletic Council (FAC) last season, but bring a different roster to the pitch in 2013.
“I do think Canmore will be that team to beat for sure, especially with what happened last year,” said Knights coach Tyson Fedor, a star striker for the team last year. “Of course a couple of our players want to get some retribution on them, myself included. I don’t play or coach for second place.”
The free-wheeling Knights were a Grade 12 heavy team last season.
Graduated from the Knights roster are key goal scoring threats in Fedor, Mike Weigle and Chad MacPherson as well as defender Felix Hoppe and steady goalkeeper Joe Maxwell.
Incumbent defenders Daniel Brockerville, Rob McGuire and David Coderre will provide stability at the back of the Knights’ 4-3-3 formation.
As the last line of defence Grade 10 James Hielema is proving to be a keeper.
“There’s definitely some holes to fill and we got those holes filled,” Fedor said. “James, he plays club soccer in Calgary for Foothills Tier I, and I like what I’ve seen from him.”
Fedor said he expects Grade 12 striker Sergio Espino to pick up much of the scoring slack along with Grade 11 Braden Barwich, Grade 10 Tulio Moraes and midfielders Simon Leslie, Jordan McCarthy and Nolan Young.
The Knights will maintain their trademark possession style of soccer, but with an added wrinkle this season.
“I want it to be fast paced, quick, I want to use as much width as possible and I don’t want the boys going forward necessarily all the time if they’ve got nothing going on,” Fedor said. “I want them to regroup, reset in their own zone and work the ball. Possession is my biggest key that I’m going to utter to them this year.”
HTA opens its season tonight versus the Spartans in Strathmore. The Knights then square off with Foothills on May 5 at Riverside Park in Okotoks at 4:30 p.m.
The Falcons’ bid for a return to prominence after a fourth place finish last season will be led by a new voice from the sidelines.
Clancy Todd takes over the coaching duties and he said the Falcons are looking to get back to the kind of soccer they played as back-to-back league champions in 2010-11.
“We obviously are going to be striving higher than fourth place,” said Todd, who will be sharing the coaching duties with Manny Pequeno. “We have a very good team and hope to come out and beat the bigger teams, the Canmores, and come out with better games against them which I think we can definitely do.”
The Falcons will be tested at the outset as they open their FAC slate today, May 1, against the Crusaders in Canmore.
Foothills featured a youth laden roster in 2012 and while they had a potent offensive attack there were some deficiencies in protecting its goal.
The Falcons look poised to have a little more balance on the pitch this season with another year of experience from the seven Grade 12s on the team.
“We have a lot Grade 12s so it’s nice,” Todd said. “We’re going to have a really experienced starting lineup.”
Key returnees include left footed winger Jared Nudd and attacking partner James Thomas, Garrett Young, defenders Caden Parker, Josh Vaines, Matt Actemichuk and Jason Smith as well as goalkeeper Linton Grant.
“I feel like we have a very strong roster,” Todd said. “We have a lot of returning players and have brought in four or five Grade 10s who are adding a lot of depth to the roster.”
Tom Stokes, Matt Wright, Dallin Lyons and Jeremy King have injected the Falcons with some youthful enthusiasm as Grade 10s. First-year Grade 12 players Adam Keizer and Cody Froese have also impressed in practice.
“When we’ve been practicing this season (goals) have come from a lot of different people,” Todd said. “We have the strikers Jared and James, but have also had some people step up in terms of Garrett and Cody and some of the young guys.
“Hopefully (goal scoring) will be a bit spread out this year.”
At the other end of the pitch, Grant is expected to split the goaltending duties with Braden Gelinas.
“They both are strong in different areas so it’s a nice balance,” Todd said. “Linton has much more experience in net, but Braden comes in and he is very quick and very hard working so I think he’ll pick up things very quickly.”
Following the match-up with Canmore and the Okotoks derby with the Knights on Monday, the Falcons travel south to meet Highwood High on May 8 and then host their home opener at Kinsmen Park on May 15 versus the Notre Dame Collegiate Timberwolves.
