Preseason Preview

Mountain Climbing

As we begin our climb, this 2017 boys' soccer season, we will need better guides, better equipment, and just a great effort if we are going to return to the top of that mountain.

We graduated our entire backline—right back, Sam Sketers (now playing at Oral Roberts), all-everything, Aubrey Evans (now playing at Army), left back Andrew Wherry, and centerback, Matthew Ewert, along with keeper Sam Kimball.  
j So let's start our climb there, from the back.  We are going to start with 6 very good players, and we will figure out where to play them. They all can play.  2-year letter winner and junior captain, Reid Howard, will be somewhere, probably centerback, but he can make that offensive attack from the sides. Junior Jacob Colling has just had a great summer that will earn himself a place in the mix, another centerback who can go wide if we need him to. We bring back senior Ryan Holland who was getting lots of minutes at the end of last season, and who promises to be perhaps our best tackler in the back. He plays hard and at pace, something we want to see all over the field the season. Jacob Vance has some big shoes to fill in replacing first-team ALL STATE Andrew Wherry at left back, but he will remind everyone a lot of Wherry while he's out there. And Jacob serves a perfect corner, as well.

Senior Jack Shaw looks to play mostly at right back for us, but he can play in the middle as well. And another surprise of the summer is Andrew Payne who brings all of those same traits we are looking for out of the back.

Cameron Zerr and Luke Lillis (in his soccer comeback) also had solid summers and probably will be right there in a position to help the varsity.

And we will get a nice surprise in goal. Shea Wirt (Landon's brother), a former Sporting Jr. has left Sporting to join high school soccer. And we have a very fine senior keeper, Spencer Mogren, who moves up from JV. Both goalies just had a great summer. I believe we surrendered two goals all summer.

We played a lot of matches this summer—12, the most in Aquinas history, and we played for the first time with 2 defensive center midfielders.  We like our personnel there, and we like the results we got from adjusting to a new formation that we hope to get even better at playing.  Joey Caragher, a junior, probably jumps out as one of our stars if you watch us play.  We plan on using him, with fellow junior, Matthew Carta, along with sophomore, Phillip Disidore in those two spots.

But Eric O'Donnell and sophomore Gabe Craft and freshman Mitchell Farrar all had big-time summers for us, and all can help in the middle of the field. We did lose EKL Midfielder of the year, Danny Gabriel, and he will be tough to replace.

Our most heralded player coming into the season will be our "10," Curt Whigham.  We need him to have an All-American-like season for us this year, to serve as one of our key guides up that mountain. He can distribute; he can score and he will serve as an important captain of this squad.  He has already committed to Drake University.

We also believe we have the talent and the wheels to play a true "7" and an "11" for the first time in a long time.  We return senior Landon Wirt to play the "11" or the "7" with senior returner Devin Diggs, another track-star/soccer-star to play lots of minutes as well.  With the loss, because of an ACL tear this summer of senior winger Michael Davidson, we are moving junior Esteban Arias out wide for the start of the season.  He can also give Curt a breather or two at the "10" as well. 

We also expect to get minutes out of seniors Eli Weissend and Mark Biggins, with Mark playing some target for us as well.

Our "9's" should provide us with some real offense this year.  Sophomore Parker Stoecklein and junior Jack Mason are two of the better players in the entire area, and we are hoping they get some early footing to help key our climb back to the top.

Another couple of freshman who really showed well during the summer are Caden Eames and Zayveon Russell. We think both of them will earn some varsity minutes this season.

The long-time assistant, Ron Brown, has retired from STA soccer, and we will miss him. Bryan Turner, back for his 6th season, will take over the helm of the JV, continuing to assist us on the varsity level.

C-team coach Juan Luengo (year 5) will be back, but now with Will Ragsdale (year 5) as his full-time assistant, we will utilize him some helping our varsity transition into a new formation that he has coached for awhile. Saint Soccer grad and SLU soccer alum, Steven Grow, will still be stopping by every once in awhile to work with our keepers as he did for the first time last season.

BWhite begins year 14 with our varsity, and Coach Hammons, year 24.  That excellence and stability have always contributed to our success. In fact, Coach Ewing will begin year 30—the same as the school.

Our schedule will continue to challenge us.  Just being in the EKL with defending state champions, St. James in 5A and Bishop Miege in 4A brings quite a regular season schedule. And this season 5A state runner-up, Blue Valley Southwest, will be a preseason Top 5 team in the United States.  Add in those 6A powers like BV West, North, and Northwest—well, that's a mountain in itself.

We once again will travel to the national tournament, although it has returned to Iowa.  We begin with Lake Forest out of Illinois and if we win that match we probably see another preseason Top 5 team in Marquette out of Milwaukee. And on to a 3rd game.

We will also return to the Radio 810 Soccer Showcase (in fact, Aquinas will host it this year) where we will take on 6A defending state champ, Dodge City. 

And of course, we travel to Rockhurst and Lee's Summit North. So we will have as good of a schedule as anyone in the city. Hopefully, all of those smaller peaks will have us ready for the big climb at the very end of the season. Maize, out of Wichita, will host state this year in early November. And after missing the final four for the first time in a long time last year, we sure want to be there with just a couple of more oomphs to the top.