2007 Season Preview
“His Final Goal Achieved the Greatest Victory”
II Timothy 4:7
In 2005, the Golden Eagles graduated three seniors that featured 2-time All-American-HM goalkeeper Justin Breckan, 2005 leading scorer and All American-HM Nathan Grube and defender Drew Martin. On paper, it appears to only be 3 players but in reality these 3 players were a big reason for last year’s 13-6-1 record. The challenge for the 2006 Golden Eagle soccer team will be to blend the maturity of returning players with the talent of one our brightest recruiting classes.
Losing the nucleus of a very solid defensive unit will pose a challenge as Cornerstone University enters the 2006 season. Brent Grube will take over goalkeeping duties for the Golden Eagles. “Brent was solid for us last year 4-1-0 with .79 GAA and 2 shutouts. I know Brent has been working extremely hard in the off season and will spend the summer with Missionary Athletes International Chicago Eagles touring Germany”, says Bell. Also coming in to mind the nets will be freshman Ken Anderson (Rockford, MI). Ken is a gifted athlete that will be a perfect fit coming in as a backup. Brad Verburg , 2005 Team MVP and All Conference-HM with 5 goals and 3 assists will be the anchor for this year’s defense. Brad brings instant energy to the back line. Brad also had 2 game winning goals as a defender last year. Brad moved from the midfield in ‘04 to become a defender for us last year. Brad always gives us 110% and transitioned to a defender without any problems. We will definitely need that intensity for the 06 season”, says Bell. Aaron Wilke, will compete for one of the outside back positions. Aaron was our 2005 Most Improved Player, “Aaron came up big for us at the end of last season and was arguably one of our better one-on-one defenders as a freshman.” Kyle Akers came off the bench for 11 games last year and has put a lot of time and energy in becoming a quality defender this off-season. “Kyle should compete for a starting position in the center back position. He is good in the air and we like his aggressive style of play back there”, says Bell. We have 3 young new players coming in that we feel could really impact our defense, Bryan Evans is probably the best pure defender we have coming in, Ben Hanson and Matt D’Agostino are quick, versatile players that play in the midfield as well as the back and Kurtis Koffkey and Caleb Dryden are big strong center backs that should fight for playing time as well.
“Our midfield should be the strongest part of the 2006 team.” says Bell. Returning for his senior year will be Tom Skilling, 2005 All Conference and Academic All American with 8 goals and 9 assists. If Tom can stay healthy, we could see some exciting things happen in the midfield. Trevor Christie, 2005 WHAC Champions of Character award winner, had 4 goals and 4 assists last year while playing in more of a defensive mid role for us. Patrick Wilson, 2005 WHAC Newcomer of the Year, played in the back as well as the midfield last year but we would like to see Patrick push up in to the attack a lot more in ‘06.” Zack McCabe, had 3 goals and 3 assists in 2006 and saw plenty of action at the outside midfield position. After a good spring season, Bruce Pobocik will compete for playing time. Newcomers Christian Perez and Chike Taylor-Phillips are talented freshmen who can play anywhere in the midfield and will make a strong push for time as a rookies. Nathan Wood is a speedy midfielder/forward transferring in from Cedarville that will get a strong look for playing time as well. Each of these players brings something different to the table. The deciding factor of who is on the field will be a matter of chemistry and production.
The biggest question marks for this year’s team will be at the forward position. Sam Oberlin, 2005 All Conference-HM, is coming off 2 injury plagued seasons but still managed to put in 10 goals and was 2nd leading scorer for a team that scored 56 goals last season. Justin VanderKodde will get a look at up top while some exciting freshmen, Joseph Anderson, Matt Kunnen, Joel Stowie and Jose Morrales will provide some much needed spark on attack . Joseph is an exciting player and skillful attacker. Matt (NCCSA All American) has shown he has a knack for putting the ball in the net and has excellent speed. We will need them to spark our offense this year.
This year’s schedule will be one of the most difficult in recent history. First, we only have 6 games at home this year. In 2005, we were 9-1 at home and 4-5-1 on the road. We will need a road warrior’s mentality next year. We start the season off with 2 big tournaments, one in Chicago at Trinity International and the other at Mount Vernon Nazarene in OH. Our other non conference opponent includes a visit to Kalamazoo College.
As always, the WHAC schedule will be a difficult challenge. Madonna, winner of the WHAC regular season comes to town for an early showdown in September, followed by an equally tough Davenport, the 2005 WHAC Tournament Champs. Last year, we split the regular season series with Siena Heights but they finished ahead of us in the final standings and we will need to play them a lot tougher at their place. Indiana Tech defeated Cornerstone for the first time last year (3-2 loss in Ft Wayne) and we will be looking to pay them back. Cross-town rival Aquinas has a new coach, Joe Veal, and looks to improve on their 4 wins last season. Concordia has shown great improvement under their new coach and should be tougher than in years past. There is no easy game in this schedule. In 2003, one of our goals was to win the WHAC and we were able to capture our first Championship since 1993. 2006 is the year the Cornerstone University Men’s soccer team starts taking steps towards achieving that goal again. With a good mix of youth, experience and leadership, I expect this team to achieve that goal.
