Soccer: Alexandria School kicks off is inaugural soccer season - Alexandria Echo Press

ALEXANDRIA — The Alexandria Technical and Group School is ushering in additional athletics this fall season, and Wednesday was the start of a part of that new period for the Legends.

The lads’s and girls’s soccer applications kicked off their inaugural seasons taking part in at Alexandria Space Excessive Faculty. Each applications went up in opposition to Lake Superior School out of Duluth the place the IceHawks beat Alexandria 2-1 in each the boys’s and girls’s sport.

“For me, it was actually thrilling,” coach Tom Roos stated. “I’ve seen soccer develop from virtually actually nothing on this neighborhood to what it’s now the place now we have a whole bunch of youth taking part in, now we have sturdy highschool groups taking part in, and now now we have one other stage of soccer. As we speak was actually thrilling and rewarding.”

Roos, the longtime head coach for the Alexandria ladies’ highschool soccer program, and William “Chato” Alvarado are co-head coaches for each the boys’s and girls’s groups at ATCC. Alvarado has a deep historical past as a participant and coach in soccer. For 17 years, he has labored as a visitor coach at Roos’ summer time camp that Roos hosts every year, and Alvarado and his spouse just lately moved to Alexandria after getting a job on the school.

1.DSC_2407.Tom Roos and Chato Alvarado.JPG — Chato Alvarado, sitting, and Tom Roos coach from the bench in the course of the Alexandria School males’s soccer inaugural sport on Aug. 24, 2022. Alvarado and Roos are co-head coaches for each the boys’s and girls’s groups at Alexandria Group and Technical School.

The Alexandria School volleyball program can also be in its first season this fall and opened its schedule on Aug. 24 at St. Cloud Technical and Group School. Their first residence sport on the school health club is about for Sept. 7 in opposition to Itasca Group School at 6:30 p.m.

Alexandria School now affords baseball, clay goal league, aggressive fishing, eSports, golf, soccer and volleyball as

athletic choices

for its college students.

The Legends soccer program has two Alexandria gamers on the ladies’s roster in Grace Evink and Ella Sorenson. Bjorn Karlstad, Anthony Krick, and Seah Haak make up the Alexandria gamers for the boys, whereas Glenwood’s Tanner Nestor and Konner Hanson are additionally on the staff.

The ladies’s roster options simply 11 athletes. The lads have 20 gamers on their inaugural roster. Eighteen of them are Minnesota natives, whereas Sam Saye is on the staff from Fargo, North Dakota, and Joao Seguti is taking part in for the Legends all the way in which from Brasilia, Brazil.

“We’re undoubtedly going to maintain and make extra connections within the communities round us,” Alvarado stated. “On the boys’s aspect, now we have some youngsters from Willmar, youngsters from Pelican Rapids, Monticello. We’re going to strengthen these connections, after which hopefully going to department out as nicely. We’re going to attempt to get some worldwide gamers and throughout the county. ATCC is correct now ranked first within the state as a two-year school, and is ranked third within the nation. That’s a good way to draw gamers.”

1.DSC_2492.Julissa Celis-Victoria (Willmar).JPG — Julissa Celis-Victoria, left, and Amanda Shores, 23, dash up the sector for a free ball in the course of the Alexandria School girls’s soccer sport in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

The Alexandria girls took a 1-0 lead into halftime on Wednesday when Emily Starr scored her staff’s first-ever purpose. The Sauk Rapids native ran onto a free ball behind the protection and located herself on their lonesome after getting previous the Lake Superior keeper.

That early lead was a enjoyable second for a staff that performs with none reserves on the bench because of the low general numbers on this first season.

“The ladies program is an attention-grabbing program,” Roos stated. “After we began males’s and girls’s soccer on the school, we knew that creating a ladies program was going to be a course of, not the flip of a swap. It’s a course of which may take a number of years to get it to the place we would like it to be.”

Goalie Molly Hanson, a Fargo native, made that 1-0 lead maintain up with some good saves till slightly greater than 20 minutes had been left within the sport. That’s when Lydia Steinbauer related on a excessive shot to the again, high nook of the web to make it 1-1.

The IceHawks obtained the game-winner with virtually quarter-hour left. Catherine Bastin related on a robust shot that obtained by Hanson for the 2-1 benefit.

1.DSC_2479.Molly Hanson (Fargo, ND).JPG — Alexandria School goalie Molly Hanson shouts course to her protection in the course of the Legends’ first-ever sport in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

“We have now a really wide selection of skill ranges on the staff, so No. 1 we need to have a optimistic expertise,” Roos stated of the coaches’ objectives for the ladies’s staff this fall. “We need to have enjoyable. We need to see progress and enchancment as we go alongside the way in which, and I believe we need to present it’s a optimistic expertise. Evaluating the staff based mostly on its wins and losses is just not what we’re going to be doing. We’re going to be evaluating on, ‘Are we exhibiting enchancment? Are we having enjoyable? Is it enhancing the expertise that they’ve on the school?’ If we are able to try this, that may also assist appeal to ladies sooner or later.”

Within the males’s sport, Alex Westveer, a Monticello native, scored the first-ever purpose for the Legends, and it got here only a couple minutes after Lake Superior School had jumped forward 1-0 within the first half on an Ulrich Mvogo purpose. Westveer took a go close to the 20-yard line and buried a working shot to make it 1-1.

It took Lake Superior School lower than three minutes into the second half to attain the go-ahead purpose. Victor Andrews obtained free from a aspect angle across the 10 yard-line and lofted a shot over the outstretched arms of Alexandria keeper Elliot Colton.

1/12: Joao Seguti, a local of Brasilia, Brazil, dribbles round a defender within the Alexandria School Legends’ first-ever sport performed in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

2/12: Jordy Contreras of Willmar will get behind the protection in opposition to Lake Superior School as Contreras creates a scoring alternative throughout Alexandria’s School’s first-ever sport on Aug. 24, 2022.

3/12: Monticello native Alex Westveer seems to be up discipline for the Alexandria School males’s soccer staff on Aug. 24, 2022. Westveer scored the Legends’ first-ever purpose late within the first half in opposition to Lake Superior School.

4/12: Pelican Rapids native Sebastian Centeno chases down a ball for the Alexandria School males’s soccer staff in the course of the Legends’ sport in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

5/12: Alexandria Legends males’s and girls’s soccer co-head coach Tom Roos watches the motion from the bench throughout his staff’s first-ever sport on Aug. 24, 2022 in opposition to Lake Superior School.

6/12: Alexandria Legends goalie Elliot Colton of Rockford makes a sliding save throughout his staff’s sport in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

7/12: Hailey Kremer chases down a free ball for the Alexandria School girls’s soccer staff in the course of the Legends’ season opener in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

8/12: Chloe Kranzel of Dickinson, North Dakota talks with coach Tom Roos throughout a stoppage in play when the Alexandria School girls’s soccer staff performed Lake Superior School within the Legends’ first-ever sport on Aug. 24, 2022.

9/12: Amanda Shores of Kerkhoven defends Lydia Steinbauer (4) in the course of the Alexandria School girls’s soccer sport in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

10/12: Icess Hodges of Robbins, Illinois races for a free ball in the course of the Alexandria School girls’s soccer sport in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022.

11/12: Danielle Lassman, an Eden Prairie native taking part in for the Alexandria School girls’s soccer staff, dribbles by site visitors in opposition to Lake Superior School on Aug. 24, 2022 in the course of the Legends first sport as a school program.

12/12: Ulrich Mvogo, proper, of Lake Superior School celebrates his first-half purpose in opposition to Alexandria School on Aug. 24, 2022. That purpose was a part of a 2-1 win for the IceHawks over the Legends.

Colton had some good saves to maintain the sport shut, however that purpose proved to be the winner after the Legends’ offense was unable to generate one other purpose.

Each of those video games on Wednesday evening had been about greater than who gained or misplaced for the coaches and gamers on these rosters. It was about giving younger women and men one other alternative to attach by soccer in Alexandria.

“We’re making an attempt to copy that optimistic expertise with the boys as nicely, although now we have extra gamers,” Alvarado stated. “The lads have been fairly cohesive up to now and have been supporting one another. We simply have to preserve working at that. Undoubtedly one of many issues we’re going to attempt to do is make certain everybody improves. On the ladies’s staff, now we have a variety of talents, however we even have that very same state of affairs on the boys’ aspect. On the finish of the day, we need to make certain the staff is bettering as an entire.”