ALTON – The Alton High boys soccer team returns a core group of five players, including three senior tri-captains, to the team as it prepares for the upcoming season. The Redbirds will be looking to improve from a 7-8-5 campaign last season that ended with a 2-1 loss to Quincy in the IHSA Class 3A regional in Collinsville.
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“Preseason practice has been pretty good,” said Redbird coach Nick Funk. “The team’s coming along pretty well.”
The senior tri-captains who will be returning are midfielder Jake Lombardi, backfielder Brayden Schrempf and midfielder Brayden Decker. In addition, a pair of juniors, goalkeeper Owen Macias and striker Justin Davison, will be counted on heavily for the Redbirds. Other key returnees include senior striker Hayden Batchelor and junior backfielder Colton Sebold. Senior Eric Summerhof also returns to the team.
“We return a very skilled core group this year,” Funk said.
The schedule has been changed much for this coming season, as the Southwestern Conference has adopted a home-and-home format for its games this season, which adds six more conference games to the overall slate. Funk feels that the conference games are his toughest, but his team has been getting ready for the new challenge.
“Our schedule is brutal this year,” Funk said, “and this year, we’re doing dual conference games, and they’re always our toughest games. It’s going to be tough, but the boys know it, and we’ve been preparing for it.”
In addition to the conference schedule, the non-conference slate includes games against DeSmet, Granite City, Triad, Columbia at World Wide Technology Soccer Park, and Waterloo Gibault Catholic. And because of the conference format change, the Redbirds have had to drop many non-conference games against opponents that the team has built good relationships with over the years.
“We’ve added more conference games, so we’ve had to drop some non-conference games against teams we’ve built up a relationship with,” Funk said. “So that’ll be a bummer.”
Still though, the Redbirds are ready to go for the new season, and it starts on Friday in the Metro Cup tournament at Collinsville, when Alton meets up with Breese Central, then takes on Triad on Saturday morning at 8 a.m., and then Rochester at 3 p.m. that afternoon at Kahok Stadium. Funk feels that the key to success lies in two simple words.
“Stay healthy,” Funk said. “The boys are eager, so we’ve got a week before the season comes our way.”
