(Oakland) A lot of talent has exited the scene due to graduation for the Riverside boys soccer team. The Bulldogs lost their top three goal scorers from last year.
Van Andrusyshyn, Hunter Hodges, and Adrian Dillon combined for 37 of the team’s 43 of the team’s 69 goals last season and 37 of their 45 assists. Rick Ryun’s team won’t be very deep, but he still likes the personnel he has to work with. “We kind of have some low numbers this year with 15 kids going out. I do have seven returning starters and some other kids that saw some playing time. It’s going to be kind of a hole with the four seniors we graduated last year, but I like the team.”
Ryun admits he was expecting a larger roster, but they have one player out with injury and a few others that had planned to focus on track. They do have seven starters back from a team that put together an eight game winning streak late last season and finished 12-4. Dylan McDonald in goal and much of the defense remain intact. McDonald posted 87 saves last year. McDonald was an honorable mention all-conference pick last year. Joel Henningsen, Drake Woods, Mikey Casson, and Ethan Reicks all return.
Offensively they’ll be looking for some players to step up and score some goals. Brogan Allensworth is a likely candidate to increase production. The junior is heading into his third season as a starter. Caden Manzer and Taten Williams are a couple of additional returners on offense while coach Ryun lists freshmen Braydon Hill and Ayden Salais as two guys that could contribute right away.
They won’t have nearly as much speed as last year and thus might showcase a different style of play. “We were able to give them the ball last year and let them go, but this year I’m not sure if we’ll use the same formation or not. I’m looking for good fundamentals, spacing, good passing, and a lot of good teamwork to get the defense shifting around so we can score. I expect to be really good at corner kicks again this year. Last year we scored a lot of goals there.”
He reports they had a good offseason with many of the guys playing in some different leagues. That should somewhat help offset the rust of not being able to practice throughout the month of April.
