Muskie boys ‘cramming’ for tourney

As the Muskie boys’ soccer team continues to practice for this weekend’s season-opening tournament in Winnipeg, there is still plenty of things to go over.
Like students cramming for an exam, the Muskies have been hitting the field extra hard this past week to get ready. And there hasn’t been an aspect of the game left untouched.
“We’ve been going over the finer points of the game, like throw-ins and corner kicks,” assistant coach Ben Andrusco said Tuesday morning. “And we’ve been focusing on positional play.”
It sounds like the black-and-gold are breaking the game down to the very basics. But with a team that features 10 rookies on its 18-man roster, that’s not particularly surprising.
“It’s all coming along nicely and the boys seem to jelling as a team,” assistant coach Jason Kabel remarked during yesterday’s practice.
“No, I don’t think there are too many question marks,” added Andrusco. “I think we’re in a situation of who can play at what positions?”
In fact, Muskie head coach Keith Gilbert feels they’re “about a week” ahead of schedule compared to past seasons. And he said it’s normal for his teams to be working on the finer points of the game late in training camp–even though they’ll see game action in about 48 hours.
They open action Friday at 5:30 p.m. against the River East Kodiaks, then they’ll play two games Saturday–at 11:30 a.m. versus the Tec Voc Hornets and 4 p.m. against Glenlawn Collegiate.
All their games will be at the St. John’s Ravenscourt field.
“It’s been a Godsend having the extra week [of practice],” said Gilbert, referring to the early spring here. “We’ll just have to see how well we do as a team but sometimes when you win or lose, it’s not a real indication of your team.”
The team’s most blatant example of who is going to play where is at keeper. The Muskies are expected to start Dan Poperechny in goal for their first game against River East.
Ryan Hampton, who has played goal in the local men’s Borderland league, will begin the season as his backup.
But with the loss of last year’s starter, Jordan Roy, the Muskies have been scrambling to find a suitable goalie to take his place.
“Certainly, you look at previous years and Jordan was our security blanket, and that’s our big question this year, but the guys have been working hard to learn new [positions] and strategies,” said Gilbert.
Andrusco added they will see how well Poperechny fares in goal but admitted they’d be willing to make a change if the situation presents itself.
Still, he said Poperechny is “coming along quite good” heading into the opener.
Meanwhile, the team is still auditioning players to play the outside midfield positions in a 4-4-2 system. But the Muskies won’t limit those positions to just a pair of players.
In fact, Kabel, who derived the idea of using the system from a Brazilian team, has thoughts of using several players at what he called a “very” demanding position.
Andrusco said players will have to be “good on both offence and defence” to play the position. “Most of our guys are midfielders for that reason,” Kabel noted.
Those players will be moving up field to take part in the offence when the black-and-gold has the ball but then will have to hustle back if the Muskies turn the ball over.
Without question, those two players will have to be in optimum condition–because they’re going to have to do a whole lot of running.
“It’s a different style with two strikers and with the wingers doing quite a bit of running,” Andrusco noted. “But nothing is definite yet as who’ll play there.”