Hines, Hoover lead Winamac boys soccer past Rochester

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

Boys soccer

Winamac 3, Rochester 0 (Thursday): Jaybin Hines had a goal and an assist, and Kannon Hoover also scored for the host Warriors in a win over Rochester Thursday.

Sean Stark contributed an assist.

Winamac also scored on an own-goal.

Hutch Martin had the shutout in goal.

Winamac had a 28-5 advantage in shots on goal. 

Kevin Jones had 24 saves for the Zebras. 

Winamac improved to 4-3-1. Rochester fell to 2-11-1.

Brown seeing ‘good stuff out of my young kids’ despite loss to John Glenn

BY VAL TSOUTSOURIS

Sports Editor, RTC

The Rochester boys soccer team had just one shot on goal in a 4-0 home loss to John Glenn at the Brent Blacketor Memorial Sports Complex Monday.

Landon Richie, Alex Naragon, Nate Rose and Koda Nimon had one goal each for the Falcons. Richie, Naragon and Nimon are all seniors.

John Glenn had eight seniors as compared to Rochester’s four.

“You could just tell, sometimes just calmness on the ball,” Rochester coach Trevor Brown said when asked how John Glenn’s experience showed itself. “They were a little more in tune with each other. The difference between a team that’s mostly freshmen and sophomores and mostly juniors and seniors. A lot of it is decision-making and just being in a rhythm and being on the same page. And they were a little more on the same page than we were.”

Rochester dropped to 2-12-1. They have been shut out nine times.

Still, Brown saw progress.

“But on the flip side of that, I saw some improvements today,” Brown added. “Obviously, we’d like to get some wins, you know. But I’m seeing kids make better decisions. I’m seeing guys finding some combination play. I’m seeing good stuff out of my young kids that I’m hoping is going to translate going forward.”

Decision making and experience are often directly related.

“A lot of it for us is like when do we take a shot? When do we play the pass? When do I trap a ball? When do I need to clear the ball? When do I play a short pass? When do I play a long pass?” Brown said. “A lot of that is just game reps. A lot of that is just soccer and playing soccer for a long time and getting used to each other.

“Because even our older guys are kind of new to soccer. Two of our seniors (Isaac Heishman and Jackson Frounfelter) haven’t played since sixth grade. So our old guys are young guys. So as far as like being aggressive and things like that, I think we’ve also taken good strides in that category. We committed fouls today, but they were fouls that were just aggressiveness. They were just guys trying to battle and win a ball. In the beginning of the season, the fouls we were committing either we weren’t battling hard enough or they were stupid fouls where we were just mistiming them.”