Eagan girls will have a lot of new faces on field
Soccer team replacing 14 seniors from last season
Eagan girls soccer coach Mark Obarski had to extend tryouts this year. In years past he was able to get those wrapped up in two days, name his teams and get on with the task of preparing for the season.
This year he decided he had to stretch tryouts to four days. “Two reasons, really,” Obarski said. “We have so many players who are similar. The skill level is better overall. The differences between players are so much smaller that it takes more time to evaluate them.
“The other reason is we graduated 14 players off our varsity last year. We’re looking at a whole new team this year.”
Expectations don’t change much for the Wildcats, who were 15-3-1 last season and reached the Section 3AA championship game. Eagan still believes it can be a threat for section title. But it might take a little longer – perhaps several games into the regular season – before the Wildcats are playing well enough to aim high in the postseason.
One of the Wildcats’ biggest concerns is in goal. Kristen Knutson, a four-year starting goalkeeper, has graduated and now plays for the University of Minnesota. Erica Cimochowski, a senior captain this season, played limited minutes in goal last year but is one of two, possibly three, players competing for the spot this season. Obarski said he could go with a rotation in goal.
Eagan also will have some new players in the central defense and central midfield positions, and Obarski said that might require the team to play more of a defensive style this season. But the Wildcats won’t go into a shell because they have several returning players with scoring ability.
Senior captain Marissa Ganske led Eagan in scoring last season with 16 points (nine goals, seven assists). Obarski said Ganske might play several positions this year, sometimes moving up to spark the offense and sometimes moving back to help the defense.
Senior captain Kaleigh Solheim scored seven goals last season, second on the team to Ganske. Junior Roselyn Anderson had six goals. Sophomore Rachel Wall scored three times after being called up to the varsity in midseason.
If there’s a good time to have to replace so many varsity players, this season might be it for Eagan. A number of other South Suburban Conference teams are in the same situation. Burnsville might have been the preseason favorite, but the Blaze has lost its top two returning players to knee injuries.
“I heard about what happened to Burnsville, and that’s too bad,” Obarski said. “You never want to see that happen to a team.
“The conference lost an excellent group of seniors last year. The number of those kids who are playing in college is amazing, compared to other years.”
Many of Eagan’s new players compete at the Classic 1 or Premier levels with club teams, so talent isn’t expected to be an issue, Obarski said. Acclimating to new teammates might take some time, though.
And time is not something the Wildcats have in abundance. The Wildcats open the regular season at Rochester Mayo on Aug. 23, then play at home against Rogers on Aug. 25.
The four games after that are a gauntlet of ranked opponents – Woodbury, Duluth East, Eastview and Lakeville North. “That’s a brutal stretch of games,” Obarski said.
