Creston soccer looks to avenge substate loss

Last season, the Creston boys soccer team went 12-5. The Panthers fell to eventual state semifinalist ADM in the Class 2A Substate 8 Championship with a scoreline of 2-0.

“I think we have a lot of potential this year, we haveve got some great seniors leading the squad and a good group of kids coming up behind them,” second year Creston head coach Chad Malmanger said. “I’m really excited to see what comes of this group of players this year.”

Of the six juniors that were on Creston’s soccer team last year, five of them are returning this season with a combined 39 goals.

Senior midfielder Aidan Anderson, a Northwestern College soccer commit, accounted for 27 of Creston’s 52 goals last season.

Fellow senior Briley Hayes, who is committed to play football at Division III Simpson College, also accrued good stat lines while on the pitch with seven goals on 14 shots and six assists last season.

“The team voted on captains earlier this week and we came to the conclusion that Aidan Anderson and Briley Hayes were best suited to lead our team and that’s who we’ve been rallying around,” Malmanger said. “We’ve got great a group of core seniors who I think they all have great leadership qualities.”

Other seniors on the 2022 Panthers include Skyler Wilson, Andre Davis and Derek Paup.

Nolan Pryor, a junior, was also a name coach Malmanger brought up in terms of upperclassmen to keep an eye on this spring.

The season, which officially starts tonight at Denison-Schleswig, was supposed to start on Tuesday at Collins-Maxwell. Due to potential thunderstorms, however, the match was cancelled.

“I’ve got some good underclassmen, we’re going to see who shows up to the games,” Malmanger said. “You don’t know how these younger kids are going to react in a varsity level match. So, coach Kissell and I have a lot of promising talent coming up and we’re excited to get them on the JV field and see how they handle stresses of a JV game.”

Last season, Creston happened to go down by a goal in each match and then the Panthers more often than not would dig themselves out of that hole.

“I hope to reverse that trend this year, I hope to not go down by one goal to get us into gear, I hope we take care of business early on in the game,” Malmanger said.

Other goals for Malmanger and his Panthers involve scoring goals in bunches and not allowing the opposition to score much at all.

“I kind of want to see 50 goals scored this year, and if we’re being really greedy, I’d like to see fewer than 10 goals scored against us,” Malmanger said.

Last season, Lewis Central was atop the Hawkeye 10 Conference table with a 7-0 slate.

“We’ve got the perennial powerhouses,” Malmanger said. “Harlan can always throw a great team out there, they have a great coaching staff up there. Denison, Lewis Central and Glenwood who can come up with some up with some very talented players. You never know what Carroll Kuemper is going to have, Atlantic is right there too, you never know what a young team can do.”

Formation wise, the Panther XI will line up in a 4-4-2, which means there are two forwards at the top, with four midfielders behind them and four backs (left back, center back and right back) behind them and a goal keeper.

“We’ll see how that one goes, it’s what we ended up in last year,” Malmanger said. “If I have to switch it up into a 3-5-2, I might do that or I might throw it into a 5-4-1 if I need to. It just depends on what we’re doing and what we’re seeing on the field during game time. We’ve got a lot of players who, hopefully, can figure out a lot of roles in case I have to pull some offensive firepower back and put them on the D. Or, if do I need to, I can add some D up in the mid to make sure I can control the mid like I want to.”

“I hope we can fill the stands a couple times this year, we’ve got a lot more home games this year and if the weather turns out nice, I hope people make an effort to get up to Panther Stadium and watch the boys work as they’ve been putting a lot of work in the mornings,” Malmanger added. “I know a lot of people a lot of people are seeing the lights turned on at 6 a.m. every day, it’d be nice to fill up the stands and show some support for our boys.”

Creston soccer is home against St. Albert on Monday in a varsity boys and girls doubleheader. The girls game is scheduled to kick at 5:30 p.m. and the boys are scheduled to kick at 7 p.m.