In winning three of the last five 5A boys soccer titles, La Salle Prep has had no shortage of explosive strikers.
From Luke Strange, Mizael Harris and Quentin Strange to Vala Saghafi and Vance Sheffield, the Falcons seemingly always had a go-to scorer. Harris, Quentin Strange and Sheffield earned 5A player of the year honors.
This season, though, La Salle Prep needs to find a way to compensate for the graduation of Sheffield, who scored 101 career goals (No. 3 all-time in state history) before heading off to a college career at Northern Illinois. And it's not so obvious how the Falcons are going to do it.
“Vance is a big void to fill, but not unlike Mizael or Quentin or Luke,” coach Monty Hawkins said. “Someone has always stepped up, so I'm anxious to see who's going to be that person, or if it's going to be a host of them. That part is kind of exciting.”
The Falcons, No. 1 in the OSAAtoday preseason 5A coaches poll, bring back 16 of 22 varsity players from last year's state championship team. But they graduated four first-team all-state players in Sheffield, center back Connor Garvey, forward Quentin Torbert and goalkeeper Adam Clem.
Without that top-end talent, the team is likely to have a different personality, according to Hawkins.
“I think it's going to be more of a blue-collar team,” he said. “It's a team that's going to grow together, and be in position to outwork, and be resilient, and stay in games.
“They're going to have to find a way to get goals. It's going to be a unified front, at this time. That's the challenge in front of us. The kids are excited about the opportunity. They really look forward to making a name for themselves.”
Six starters from the state championship game are back in seniors Declan O'Brien, River Nichols, Cooper Eldon, Henry Phillips and Luka Skoro and junior Hugo Cruz. The front line of Eldon, Cruz and senior Ben Macias – a three-year starter who came off the bench in the final – will shoulder more of a scoring burden.
“Those are the guys that were feeding Vance. Now it's their opportunity to get on the end of things,” Hawkins said. “Their roles have migrated. They're still going to need to serve, but now they're going to have to score goals, as well. No one is carrying around the weight and expectations that Vance embraced. Those kind of personalities don't come around very often.”
The midfield will feature Phillips, sophomore Ryder Korvola and junior Irie Buttler. Junior Henry Foubert, who started as a freshman but missed last season due to illness, also is in the mix.
“We're reinventing our midfield, and up front we have a lot of the same pieces, minus Vance,” Hawkins said.
The back line appears rock solid with O'Brien and Skoro at center back and Nichols and junior Nicolas Hawkins on the outside. O'Brien is a fourth-year starter. Skoro moves from center midfield to fill the hole left by Garvey.
With Clem now playing in college at Dominican University (Calif.) – along with Torbert – the Falcons had a vacancy at goalkeeper. Junior Lucas Hawkins, one of the coach's triplet sons, gets the starting nod. He was named the top goalkeeper at an IMG Academy camp in Florida this summer.
La Salle Prep opens the season Sept. 4 at home against No. 3 Woodburn. The nonleague schedule includes games against South Salem, Glencoe and Jesuit, 6A teams that beat the Falcons last year. Reigning 6A champion Jesuit is ranked No. 1 in the preseason coaches poll.
“It's going to be a barometer of where we're at,” Monty Hawkins said. “We're going to learn a lot about ourselves. We really don't have the expectation that maybe we had in the past, so we're going to give it our best and see where we land with it. There's a bit of unknown.”
jerryu@osaa.org
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