Vikings come to Merrill Field for soccer scrimmage with Cyclones
It didn’t take long for the Cyclones to get on the board in their scrimmage Friday night at Merrill Field against the AHSTW Vikings when Senior Mason Anderson knocked in a goal with 18:29 remaining in the first period.
“We had a lot of energy, which was really good,” said Cyclones Head Coach Dave Voge. “We tried to move the ball quickly, which was good too. The guys were all jacked up to play, which is totally understandable. They’re ready for the season to start.”
Anderson was the third highest scorer during the Cyclones 2022 campaign with six goals out of 47 by the team.
Other than Anderson, Junior Ian Shelton and Sophomore Spencer Fink got in on the action, dropping goals themselves. Shelton was the second highest scorer for the team last season with 11 goals, behind Senior Ashton Lyon who had 13, but is now graduated.
Voge anticipates those guys will lead the way as he’s confident his team will get some wins this season.
“Definitely Mason, Ian and Elmer [Argueta] will be good up there too and Spencer Fink is always really good too,” he said. “We have a lot of good guys up there in the midfield and up front and I think with the combination of those guys, we should be pretty good.”
With just practice occurring before the scrimmage, Voge mentioned chemistry is something this team will need to work on in order to have a successful season.
“We have to build chemistry,” he added. “They always look forward to playing other teams and so we just have to work on ball control, passing quickly, get the ball off of your foot, a lot of times they like to keep it on their foot a lit bit too long, but if we share the ball, move it a lot quicker, we can get down to score.”
The season gets underway at Merrill Field Monday at 6:30 p.m. when the Panorama Panthers come to town. Last season, the Panthers went 4-10 and were led by Sophomore Frederik Joergensen who had 11 goals and Junior goalie Jacob Walker had 26 saves.
“We played them last year and we’re really excited to get going,” Voge said. “It’ll be nice because this game actually counts. We thank coach [James] Johnson and Avoca for coming down. It gave us a chance to see what we can really do against another team and what we need to work on and we’ll focus on that for the Panorama game. We’re glad to get the season started.”