Indians soccer team looks to reload

By MARK JOHNSON
mjohnson@morrisdailyherald.com Fresh off of the most successful varsity boys soccer season in school history, the Minooka Indians are attempting to reload and enjoy another winning season in 2008. With a senior-laden lineup, the Indians won their first regional and sectional championships in school history, placed second in the Southwest Prairie Conference and posted a 16-5-2 overall record. They got one win from the IHSA Class AA State Finals before falling 2-0 to Lemont at the Bridgeview Super-Sectional. Nearly every major contributor from that memorable team is gone for the Indians. Veteran Minooka coach Jason Boe plans to build around his one returning regular, senior Jack-of-all-trades Miguel Garcia. “Miguel Garcia is the only returning player who had a significant amount of time for us last year, as he was in and out of the starting lineup throughout the '07 season,” said Boe. “He is a player that will be all over the field for us like he did last year. He'll be starting as a sweeper for us to begin the year, but will move up to center midfielder where he can get into the attack later in the year. We will be looking to him to carry us through this year. He is magic on the ball, and has a wonderful personality to go along with his play.” Another senior that boasts some varsity experience will help to prevent Minooka's opponents from scoring. “Adam Smith was part of last year's amazing run, and came off the bench in the defense all last year,” said Boe. “His patience and work from last year has paid off as he moved into the starting lineup for this year.” Four other projected starters come into the season with at least a minimal amount of playing time at the varsity level. All are now juniors. “(Midfielder) Tommaso Raimondi, (goalkeeper) Andy Pieczynski, (forward) Jake Popek and (defender) Andy Harvey worked with us last year and each had some time on the varsity field, but put in major minutes on the sophomore field,” said Boe. Rounding out the starting lineup for the Minooka opener, which is scheduled for Tuesday evening at home against Naperville Central, are sophomore midfielder Dustin Maher, freshman defender Aaron Haney, freshman forward Tony Valequez, senior forward Ralph Magdeleno and senior midfielder Julian Paramo. The roster also includes juniors Ricardo Garcia (defender), Sam Miranda (defender), Derek O'Rourke (midfielder), Milton Perez (midfielder) and Jon Stytz (defender (defender) and sophomore midfielder Brian Falvey. “I am looking forward to where our program is heading,” said Boe. “We obviously peaked last year and are starting afresh this year, but the future looks very bright as we added to our program new faces at the lower levels, and even on our (varsity) team that are coming in further along in their talent than we've had in the past. That's exciting to see.” The Indians themselves have no intention of struggling like a rebuilding team might be expected to do. “The players' goals this year are to end with a record above .500, to compete for the conference championship again and to win our regional,” said Boe. Boe is not about to tell his players that their goals are too lofty. “Each of these (goals) are attainable for us, but we have a lot of work to do to get there,” he said. “We have one player who is a seasoned veteran, while the rest are still looking to put some significant time on a varsity field.” That optimism does not mean that Boe expects success to be immediate with the current roster. “I believe we'll take our lumps to begin the season as the learning curve is very large, but as we progress, we will be looking to turn the corner and make some significant improvements as we go,” he said. “We try to be as realistic as we can with high hopes of going above and beyond what we set as goals. We want to be competitive in each game, knowing that the competition will be bigger, faster and stronger to begin the year.” Minooka held its “Meet the Indians” games early Saturday in preparation for the opener on Tuesday. The Indians will later open SPC play on Sept. 9 at Romeoville.