The Calvary Lutheran soccer team may be one of the last teams to get its fall season underway, but that's definitely OK.
The team could use the extra work for a variety of reasons.
First, and most importantly, it's the first time Calvary will offer a team made up solely of players from the school, as it had been fielding a co-op team with Father Tolton.
Secondly, because of that change, Calvary will be fielding a co-ed team to make up for a lack of numbers.
And in what normally would be a big deal, but is just another new thing this year, is the fact the squad has a new coach in Tyler Sammons.
"This is our first year playing as our own entity, so it's exciting," said Sammons, whose team opens the season at 5:30 p.m. today against Battle at the Highway 63 Sports Complex. "The kids are getting excited about it."
The Lions expect to have some growing pains this season, as these past few weeks have been important for many on the 16-person roster.
"About a third of the kids have never played soccer before," Sammons said. "The rest have played some, some of them last year on the team with Tolton."
So almost a month of practice time - Calvary started practice Aug. 4 - has been crucial.
"We're still working on the fundamentals and conditioning," Sammons said. "A lot of these established programs do so many things in the offseason, but we just started Aug. 4. In the future, a goal for the program is to have an offseason so we're not starting off behind."
It's just one of many hurdles to overcome.
"The hard part for us is we can't scrimmage against ourselves, we don't have 11-on-11," Sammons said. "... We've done 8-on-8 on a smaller field, that's kind of our game-like scenario."
While there have been defensive drills and shooting drills, the biggest point of emphasis has been passing drills and getting better and controlling the ball.
"I told them that whoever possesses the ball most often is a game is going to win," Sammons said. "That is something I think we'll struggle with, at least early on. The reality is other teams, not just because of the years of experience, but because they did the offseason work, they come in with touch. We don't have that yet. And some of them will come in in decent condition, but that's something where we're behind."
But it's a long enough season that the focus is not on the early portion of the schedule.
"We're in Class 1, which gives me some hope that we can be in some games and learn and develop as a program," Sammons said. "There might be some games where we play some schools that are very successful where we'll be pretty outclassed. But for the most part in Class 1, we'll be able to play with people.
"We're going to play some teams that are co-ed and some that are just boys. ... This year our district is schools that are about the same size. If we were facing schools in our district like Fatima or Southern Boone, I would say we don't stand a chance. But playing those size schools, we'll be OK."
The Lions have a few returnees from the Calvary/Tolton team that finished 5-10-1 and lost in a district semifinal game.
Daniel Bollinger, a junior, is back at midfielder; Evan Brenner, one of just two seniors on the roster, is back at defender and will also serve as backup goalkeeper; and junior Ross Schlichting is back at goalkeeper after missing the second half of the season with an injury.
"They all played last year and are solid kids," Sammons said.
Also back are sophomore forwards Luke Allen and Austin Engelbrecht.
"Luke's a very good athlete, probably our best scoring threat on the team," Sammons said.
Another player with experience, just not at Calvary, is junior Alex Gentges.
"He moved here from Florida, and he's a soccer player, he's played club (soccer) and played his whole life," Sammons said. "He has played defender in the past, but we'll be moving him up because he's skilled. We'll play him as a midfielder."
Allen's freshman brother, Matt, will also play some in the midfield.
"We're looking at playing a 4-4-2 (formation) to start of the season," Sammons said. "As we see what we have, we'll adapt. My philosophy is not to say we're a 4-4-2 if we don't have the players to play it. But that's what we'll start in."
Amber Binder, a defender, is the other senior on the roster, while other juniors are defenders Cole Duenckel, Kelly Rakow and Machale Mallicoat and Lizzie Oxley is a sophomore midfielder. Freshmen include defenders Colin Propst, Anastaysia Otten, Luke Felger and Chris Nicholas.
"None of the girls have played at the high-school level, but they do have some experience," Sammons said. "Lizzie Oxley is one that's going to be good, even though she's never played soccer before. She's a good athlete and there are some instincts you can't teach, and she's got them."