Dan Falloon
The Muskie boys’ soccer website posed a question to all of the returning players over the winter.
The page asked players what they were doing that day to help the team defend its NorWOSSA crown.
Talk about driven.
The black-and-gold, coached by Shane Beckett, are confident about a repeat as the 2010 campaign approaches, and suggested an improvement at the OFSAA tournament—should they qualify—isn’t out of the question.
“We usually come in pretty optimistic,” admitted Beckett. “I’ve got a lot of great returning players and some great rookies that are in.
“We have some pretty high expectations and the boys do, too.”
Beckett said last year’s trip to OFSAA, where Fort High went 0-2-2 to fall just short of advancing out of their pool, at least confirmed his strategies were on the right track—and the strenuous competition helped to prove that.
“When you’re up here, it’s really hard to know how good you actually are,” he noted. “But one bad penalty shot call at OFSAA and that cost us the second round.
“We’re really optimistic coming in this year knowing that the systems and the programs that we’re running is right up there with other ones in the province,” he added.
Just as important is that the players are starting to swear by the plan, as well, which helps for things to run much more smoothly.
“One thing is it really got the boys to buy into the systems that we’re running, and our program definitely is progressing and becoming really competitive at the provincial level,” Beckett enthused.
The team opens its season this Friday (April 30) with the St. John’s-Ravenscourt tournament in Winnipeg, then will kick off NorWOSSA play here May 5.
Beckett is careful not to look too far ahead, knowing full well that the road to Windsor, host of this year’s all-Ontarios, must run through Kenora and Dryden first.
“It’s always super-competitive,” he stressed. “Last year, there was a ton of parity in the [NorWOSSA] league and it just makes everybody play better.”
And he anticipates nothing less than a repeat of that this year as both the Kenora Broncos and Dryden Eagles have reputations for strong play.
“We always expect Kenora to come out very well-coached and very well-disciplined, and play good soccer,” Beckett remarked.
“Dryden . . . has a new coaching staff, but they’ve always come out with a handful of quality soccer players and their work ethic is top-notch, so you really have to be on guard so they don’t outwork you.
“They leave it all out on the field, so you’ve got to match their work ethic,” he stressed.
Fort High’s pedigree, according to Beckett, is being a stifling defensive team.
“We’ve always been a team that’s been difficult to score on. We can score as many goals on ourselves, almost, as the other team scores on us,” he joked.
“We’re really strong in the back,” he added. “Our fullbacks are strong with experience, but also we have depth with some new kids.”
Still, Beckett expects to couple that ability to keep the ball out of the net with an improved ability to put it in at the other end of the pitch.
“I think that this year we’re going to have better attacking duos up front,” he predicted.
“We have three or four guys that can work really well together, and I think we can score a lot more goals this year than we have in the last couple years.
“The systems that we’re running up top are really going to pay off this year.”
Beckett also expects players who took a leadership role on the Muskie boys’ hockey team that advanced to OFSAA earlier this spring, such as Brendan Cawston, Jake Witherspoon, Matt DePiero, and Dave Chambers, “to play key roles this year. . . just to name a few.”
“The veteran players that we have really need to step up,” he challenged. “We have a handful of Grade 12s who are really going to step up and be role models for our guys.”
The team’s most highly-touted rookie, Colton Spicer, also comes from the hockey team. But the biggest ace up Beckett’s sleeve is a veteran player, although new to the black-and-gold.
Caleb Heerema transferred from the Sturgeon Creek Alternative Program during the off-season, and Beckett anticipates he will be a major part of the team this season.
“He played with Rainy River the last three years and transferred to Fort High for academic reasons, so we’ve been real lucky to get him,” enthused Beckett.
“The kids voted him a captain. He’s a real leader in the midfield and he’s going to be one to watch.
“I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people because no one’s seen him before.”
The squad was able to get one exhibition game in, battling the Rainy River Owls to a 1-1 draw here last Wednesday afternoon, with Davis Smith providing the offence.
The first major test will come this weekend, however, as the Muskies will face some of Manitoba’s top teams at the SJR tournament, which Fort High has competed at for as long as Beckett can remember.
“When I was in high school, we used to go,” he recalled. “It’s the cream of the crop out of Manitoba, and you’re seeing the provincial champions and whatnot, so it’s a really good look for us to go there and see where we’re at and what we need to work on.
“Being able to compete there really shows us where we stand so early in the season and what we need to do to progress,” he stressed.
