Serving Lucas, Ottawa, Sandusky and Wood Counties
Clay returns 11 upperclassmen from last year’s team, which produced a four-match winning streak late in the season and captured victories in five of its final seven outings.
“We had a very talented sophomore base on our varsity team last year,” head coach Zach Soncrant said. “It just came with some inexperience on the varsity end, which they have gotten from last year. This year, I actually expect us to be a little bit stronger with who we have.
“Last year we had to go through some tough times and some adversity, especially to start the year. Going down the stretch at the tail end of the season, we pretty much ended on win, win, win, win with our last game being a loss. That kind of helped us move forward.
“I think all the hardships and tough times that we had last year are going to really help us this year, especially to start the year the way our schedule's set up.”
Soncrant, who is in his eighth season, said his team has two goals — to win the league and a district title.
“We have the talent to do that,” Soncrant said. “We may not have a great bit of depth, but I know talent-wise we can go toe-to-toe with any of the guys in the league. We've got some good teams in that league. I know expectation-wise that's the goal we've set for ourselves.”
Clay will have to overcome the graduation of four seniors — forward/centerback Gavin Slovak, goalkeeper Griffen Slovak, midfielder Bryce Cullen and defender Josh Medina.
On paper, the biggest player they’ll need to replace is Gavin Slovak. He had opened the season at centerback to fill in for someone, and once that player returned, he moved up top and the team took off. Eventually, Slovak was named First Team All-Northern Lakes League Cardinal Division.
“Gavin played it all for us, either as a centerback or a forward. It just depended on when we needed him and how we needed him in that game, in whatever game we had … (When the other player returned) it gave us the freedom to kind of move Gavin back up top. That's when he started getting a goal, two goals — I think he had a three-goal game late down in the stretch, and that's when we started winning a lot of our games at the tail end of the season, too.”
In terms of replacing Griffen Slovak in goal, Soncrant said the team has a competition between junior Julian Toth and sophomore CJ Harrison, who both split time on the JV squad while also seeing some varsity action last year.
“There was a two-game stretch where Griffen was actually nursing a little bit of an injury where both of those guys saw time,” Soncrant said. “We're working through that during our scrimmages this preseason and tryouts. We're looking to get both those guys into (scrimmage action) to kind of see where we stand.”
Midfielder Nikolai Cholin, a junior who earned Second Team All-NLL Cardinal recognition last year, returns.
“I look at him as one of our key players really driving the ball forward for us, whether it's in assisting goals or being a goal scorer himself,” Soncrant said. “Last year I think he was probably number one on our team in goals. I think Gavin was just below him, so I kind of expect a little bit of that weight to fall on his shoulders this year.”
Other key returners include Grant Oberdick at striker, as well as outside wings, Cohen Hawes and Logan Kennedy. All three are seniors.
Soncrant said one of his potential breakout guys is junior wing Tony Diaz.
“He has played tremendously better than last year,” Soncrant said. “I think he's probably by far the most improved player. I know club ball did him really, really well this past offseason. He has worked tremendously hard on his own, too. I think a lot of teams don't know who he is right now, and I think they will by the end of the year because I think he's gonna score quite a bit of goals for us.”
There are a few other positional battles, including at outside wing, going on during scrimmage season leading up to the team’s opener on Aug. 15.
“I think the preseason is going to come down to who's producing in these game moments, who's producing some assists, who's getting the goals,” Soncrant said. “It might be production that kind of opens up the door to see who's getting a starting spot.”
