Underdogs head to the state tournament
ROSEMOUNT, Minn. — The Rosemount High School boys soccer team had only four returning varsity players from last season. Now, the Irish are preparing for an Oct. 27 quarterfinal matchup against the Edina Hornets in the Class 3AAA state tournament.
Rosemount defeated Eastview High School 1-0 last week on Oct. 19 for its respective section championship and punched a ticket to the state tournament for the first time since 2014. The Irish’s Nich Wenthe scored the game-winning goal for Rosemount. Senior goalkeeper Leyton Simmering recorded six saves.
Eastview pounded the Irish 5-1 a few weeks earlier, but the championship game set up a classic redemption match.
“People thought this was going to be a down year for us after graduating 12 or 13 seniors last year,” sixth-year head coach Todd Farrington said. “I said earlier at the beginning of the season, ‘we may surprise some people this year.’”
The Irish did just that.
The team finished the year 7-6-3 with a conference record of 3-5-1. Forget the team’s record, because only three of the 16 games played were decided by more than one goal. Every other game was either a tie, one-goal loss or a one-goal win.
“We kept asking ourselves, ‘why can’t we break through?’” Farrington said. “We had to keep focusing on what was next and how we responded.”
Many high school soccer programs’ style of play is to kick the ball as far down field as one can. Farrington wanted to teach a different approach. He wanted his team to work the ball down the field by passing and working with each other. Farrington said it was a learning curve for the team to start the season. It wasn’t until Rosemount’s fourth game of the season when things started to click for the team. The Irish took a 1-0 loss to Eagan High School.
Rosemount’s 5-1 loss to Eastview on Oct. 4 was another spark ignitor for the team. Farrington said that they weren’t going to let that loss define them. At that point in the year, they knew the team could play with anybody.
A week later they did just that. The Irish tied Lakeville South, the second-best team in the state, by a score of 0-0. Simmering knocked away nine shots in route to the shutout.
Some key players for Rosemount are juniors Andres Delgado (four goals, three assists), Wenthe (three goals) and Reid Wolf (two goals, one assist), and seniors Aidan Phou (three goals, one assist) and Simmering. Simmering recorded 76 saves and a .90 goals-allowed average during the regular season.
Rosemount is now set to play the No. 3 seeded Edina Hornets in the first game of the Minnesota Class 3AAA Boys State Tournament. Farrington referred to Edina as a “machine” and a very athletic soccer team. The Hornets are 13-3-3 with 40 goals forced and only 11 goals allowed on the year.
“We are a ‘what do we have to lose’ type team,” Farrington said. “Everybody on this team believes we belong.”
This is an unedited user writing submission. The views, information, or opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Best Version Media or its employees.
