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Published August 23, 2011, 07:34 PM

Wingers usher in young roster

The Red Wing boys soccer team struggled to a one-victory season and played in four overtime games.

By: Nick Gerhardt, The Republican Eagle

  • Red Wing boys soccer
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    Red Wing senior Peter Correll makes a pass during practice last week. The Wingers will try to rebound with young players this season after a one-victory season a year ago.

The basics

2010 recap: The Red Wing boys soccer team struggled to a one-victory season and played in four overtime games. The Wingers lost two of those games and tied the other two. Red Wing played in five one-goal games and went 0-5 in those games. The Wingers fell in the first round of the Section 1A playoffs 3-1 to Kasson-Mantorville.

The story lines

Going young: The Wingers graduated 10 seniors from last year’s team and that leaves a lot of positions open. Red Wing does bring back senior Peter Correll, a versatile player who will play at forward, and senior Andy Gehn, who played in the midfield.

“Andy and Peter could see some time at forward,” Wingers head coach Matt Quinn said.

Red Wing has just three seniors on this year’s team and four juniors, so the Wingers will need to fill in positions with a combination of sophomores and freshmen.

Changing of the guard: Andy Tarr will take over goalkeeping duties for Red Wing. Tarr, a sophomore, succeeds Andy Grave, who graduated. Tarr filled in for Grave last season when Grave missed a game due to illness.

Backline shuffle: The Wingers graduated all-conference defender Sam Whitebear, who is playing this fall at Dakota County Technical College, along with most of the backline. Angel Fernandez played significant time on the junior varsity as a seventh-grader and will likely see time on varsity.

“He’s going to be young but I have a lot of confidence in him as a defender,” Quinn said. “He’s quick and knows how to distribute the ball.”

Michael Kennedy will battle for a spot on the backline along with some first-year players, Quinn said.

“We lost a good group of defenders last year,” Quinn said.

Strong up the middle: The majority of experience back for Red Wing comes in the midfield. Of the team’s six midfielders, three are seniors while two are juniors and one is a freshman.

Struggling for wins: The Wingers best season in the last three has been a 4-10 in 2009. Red Wing won two games in 2008 and in 2010 had just one win.

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