Augustana Viking Johnny Johnson tries to stay on his feet as he's tackled by a player from the visiting King's Eagles during a Vikings home game Sept. 22.
Posted: Nov 08, 2017
We opened up on August 14th with two players coming in injured. One had a concussion and didn't play all season. The other player had both knees injured and stayed off the field and got into the last couple games of the season. It was a long time for two vets not playing.
The first game we played was against NAIT at home and played fairly well, with Jaeden Norton scoring the tying goal shortly after they scored in the first half. Unfortunately they kept coming but it was a big improvement from last year's 7-0 score. The final score was 4-1. That game also saw another veteran injured, this time with a broken collar bone and out for the season.
We played hard in the rest of the season but just couldn't find the net. We lost Jaeden Norton in the game against GPRC to a suspected broken foot. He went around in an air cast for two weeks and was cleared to play in the last two games of the season. That meant that another vet was out for most of the season.
We also lost Dylan Knoske, our central midfielder, to an ACL injury and a game later we lost Hamad to a knee injury after a tackle in the game, and both of them were out for the rest of the season.
We also ran into card issues and had a couple of players suspended for a game when it would have been nice to have them with us.
To top it off we didn't have a goalkeeper, but graduating player Joey Wagner stepped up and said he would play there. I asked him if had played before in goal and he said, "No." He worked hard in training and made some outstanding saves. I had had five goalkeepers coming in, but three of them did not qualify to get into school, one was an international student but asked for an international waiver, which of course we couldn't do, and the fifth goalkeeper injured his wrist and is out for a year. It was a tough year with some hard luck, but the squad continued to work hard and stay positive.
Recruiting has started for next year. We also start training in the gym the third Sunday in November with the first one being from 10:00 a.m. to 11:25 a.m. All other sessions will be from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and during those practice times we will be preparing for our futsal tournament.
The coaching staff was excellent with Jardath Nelson, Mark Wrubleski and John Aitken.