Rattler men younger under new coach

By Sean Rooney on September 7, 2018.

srooney@medicinehatnews.com @MHNRooney

Practice had barely begun but some members of the Rattlers men’s soccer team were already bent over in exhaustion Wednesday.

“You’ll appreciate this in the 80th minute of a game,” exhorted coach Ian Tully, who then directed the men to do another couple sets of lines.

Conditioning will be among the keys as Tully, a long-time coach from Suffield in his first year with the Medicine Hat College program, guides his charges into the regular season this weekend.

“They’re bonding as a team, it’s coming together,” said Tully. “We’ve made several strides in the right direction.

“There’s belief developing, which is great. They can’t wait to get started.”

RELATED: Women’s team scraping by to start

It’ll be a much younger team than the crew that went 6-3-1 last season, bowing out to eventual Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference silver medallist NAIT 3-2 in the playoffs. There are a trio of fifth-year players in Mike Gurski, Albert Woodroffe-Brown and Matt Wilson, but also eight rookies on the 24-man roster.

Third-year centre-back Connor Ismond is the captain.

“Compared to my first year and second year, there’s a lot of new guys, a lot of first years and second years who are going to get a decent amount of playing time,” said Ismond. “I would say the expectation is the same as every other year; just perform and hopefully do well, make it to conference (playoffs). We’re technically good, we have a lot of players.”

Tully, who describes Ismond as being able to do “everything” on the field, is facing some early injury problems but expects a good effort as the Rattlers begin the season in Olds Saturday and SAIT Sunday. They’ll open their home schedule next weekend.

With no obvious threats beyond Woodroffe-Brown — whose three goals put him third on the Rattlers in 2017 — the emphasis in the pre-season has been on building as a unit. They lost to a local senior men’s team last Thursday in a tune-up and also played an alumni team.

“We won’t win a single game on our own,” said Tully. “If we’re going to win games we need as many players as possible pulling in the same direction.”

14
-13

Comments are closed.