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The Spotlight, August 30, 2013 Fall Sports Preview B19
I’m Lovin It!
Scappoose
33588 Havlik Drive
503-543-8106
St. Helens
58771 Columbia River Hwy.
503-397-6163
Tribe boys showing soccer improvement, looking for wins
By JOHN WILLIAM HOWARD
The Spotlight
It’s been a changing of the
winds for the Scappoose High
School boys’ soccer program over
the last year, and the culture is be-
ginning to show strong signs of
new life. With the season set to be-
gin Sept. 5 at home against Roos-
evelt, second-year head coach
Scott Stanton has high hopes for
the road ahead.
The largest transition has been
to a possession-oriented offense,
rather than having defensive and
midfield players simply boot the
ball forward in hopes that their at-
tacking opponents would come
down with it.
“They did improve quite a bit at
that last year,” said Stanton, who
also said that team size and youth
made life difficult at times. “We
could control the game; we could
pass and possess, and we could
get in front of goal... the guy would
be there to take the shot, and their
6-foot, 4-inch defender would be
there to swat our 100-pound, five-
foot tall guy off the ball.”
Last season, it took a fair
amount of time to figure out how
to possess the ball for long periods
of time, but Stanton said that the
athletes picked up the idea much
faster this time around. The expe-
rience on the offensive side has al-
lowed the team to focus on other
areas, like defensive principles.
In addition to the greatly im-
proved overall technique, Stanton
lost only a handful of seniors and
will be getting much of his under-
classmen-heavy lineup back this
fall. Coupled with the influx of
freshmen into the program, this
spells good things on the horizon
as many of the newcomers have
been coached by Stanton since the
seventh grade and already under-
stand his system.
The ballooned numbers don’t al-
ways translate to high school play-
ers, according to Stanton. Many
who have played up until the
eighth grade aren’t willing to
make the heightened commitment
that is required to play at the high
school level, and Stanton said that
he sees many players drop out af-
ter leaving the middle school rec-
reational teams.
“I just try to make it fun, where
they’re learning and they’re im-
proving. It’s not boot camp where
they’re hating life and running
wind sprints all day,” said Stanton,
adding that showing the team’s
improvement to the athletes over
the last year helped to boost confi-
dence in their abilities.
Seniors on varsity are Jack Ag-
ger, Edward Cassim, Grady
Groom, Johnny Kang and Marti-
nez Manuel. This year features a
ton of juniors, including Spencer
Dieterle, Asa Flanagan, Isaac
Hamm, Colin Kilbourne, Devon
Linville, Tyler Lukinbeal, Trevor
Smith, Devin Timmons and Scott
Toenjes. Coltin Willard is the lone
sophomore on the team, and fresh-
men Kevin Bachman, Ian Donald-
son and Mason Waddington round
out the squad.
In goal is junior Colin Kil-
bourne, who beat out senior Kai
Donaldson for the spot last sea-
son, and started all but a handful
Second year coach Scott
Stanton says the team
has a host of juniors
and is learning to play
Quick Notes:
•Inexperience hurt Scappoose at
times last season.
•Squad improved over the year and is
learning to compete.
•Team has five seniors, a lot of
juniors, three freshmen, and just one
sophomore.
•Indians open season with Roosevelt
on Sept. 5
SCOTT STANTON
Scappoose Boys Soccer Coach
See TRIBE SOCCER, Page B23