stillwatergazette . com Stillwater Ponies Fall Sports Preview • Friday , September 6 , 2024 Page 11
BOYS SOCCER
( Continued from page 10 )
Seniors for the Stillwater boys soccer team include , front row , from left , Eduardo Davigo , Cameron Kenady , Alem Kovac , Eric Modean and Landon Huber . Second row , Menianssou Koko , James Guzman , Ayden Tran , Aleksander Lalich , John Flor III and Josiah Ciccone . same , with four teams ranked among the top 10 in the preseason state coaches poll .
East Ridge ( 8-1 ) held off the Ponies ( 7-1-1 ) by two points to win the league title a year ago while Woodbury ( 5-1-3 ) and Cretin-Derham Hall ( 5-1-3 ) tied for third place . Similar to the Ponies , Cretin-Derham Hall graduated the bulk of its scoring , leaving Woodbury and East Ridge with a slight edge to open the season among the anticipated contenders .
The strength of this conference was reinforced a year ago when Park placed seventh in the SEC standings before winning the Section 3AAA championship and advancing to the state semifinals before falling to runner-up Maple Grove .
Stillwater has won the SEC title five of the past eight seasons .
Section — Section 4AAA features most of the leading contenders in the SEC , including Woodbury , East Ridge , Stillwater and Cretin-Derham Hall . St . Paul Central and Two Rivers , which was seeded sixth despite posting a 10-3-4 record in the regular season a year ago , are also in the mix .
Outlook — The Ponies have put together a 47-8-4 record over the past three seasons and expectations remain high . Scoring will be a concern with some new players needed to pick up the slack for a team that outscored their opponents by a combined 53-8 . The Ponies also recorded 11 shutouts and will need to be strong defensively in front of Huber .
“ Strengths will have to be our defending off the ball and ability to play direct ,” Ponies coach Jake Smothers said . “ These are also the areas that need to show the most improvement .”
Quotable — “ Stillwater boys soccer always wants to win the section and go to state ,” Smothers said . “ Key for us will be controlling fine margins , winning duels , and not conceding silly goals . We need to be hard to play against .”
Notable — The Stillwater boys ’ soccer team has not finished with a losing season since posting a 3-13-1 record in 1983 . The Ponies have won a total of 23 conference championships and 21 section titles and competed in 20 state tournaments , which is one more than two-time reigning Class AA state champion St . Paul Academy ( 19 ), and two more than Apple Valley ( 18 ) on the list of teams with the most state appearances .
The Ponies qualified for state in 1985 , 1987 , 1988 , 1989 , 1990 , 1991 , 1995 , 1996 , 1997 , 2000 , 2001 , 2004 , 2006 , 2008 , 2010 , 2012 , 2016 , 2017 , 2018 and 2021 . Stillwater also won the section championship in 2020 , but that state tourney was canceled due to COVID-19 . Stillwater captured state championships in 1995 , 1996 , 2016 and 2018 . The Ponies were also the state runner-ups in 2017 .
The program ’ s emergence as a perennial state power took place under hall of fame coach Phil Johnson , who retired after the 2012 season . Johnson , whose teams won 451 games and captured two state championships in 32 seasons , was inducted into the Minnesota State High School League Hall of Fame in 2024 . He became just the sixth Stillwater coach to join the MSHSL Hall of Fame , a list that also includes Len McGuire , James Graupner , Bill Simpson , George Thole and Brian Luke .
Johnson is also a member of the Minnesota State High School Soccer Coaches Association Hall of Fame , the Minnesota Youth Soccer Association Hall of Fame and the St . Croix Valley Athletic Hall of Fame . He also received the Tony
Sanneh Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012 .
• No team outside the Twin Cities metro area has ever won the one-class or largest-school class state tournament in boys ’ soccer . When Duluth East advanced to the finals and lost to Stillwater in 2018 , it marked the first time an out-state team has ever played in the state finals and the Greyhounds remain the only out-state to make it that far .
• Stillwater owns the state record for longest unbeaten streak at 62 games , which the Ponies achieved from Aug . 27 , 1995 through Oct . 7 , 1997 .
The Ponies won 40 consecutive games during that span , which was a state record until Apple Valley eventually surpassed it with 48 consecutive victories from 2009 to 2011 . More recently , the Ponies won 26 consecutive games during the 2016 and 2017 seasons and also built a 32-game unbeaten streak before it was ended by Woodbury in 2017 .
• Blaine Batchelor , who was named the team ’ s Most Valuable Athlete a year ago , also received the Jim McLaughlin Scholarship Award . That latter honor is presented each year to a male and female senior-athlete at SAHS based on character , leadership , citizenship , scholarship and athletic ability .
• Three Stillwater players have been named Minnesota ’ s Mr . Soccer Award winner , including Marshall Morehead ( 1996 ), Dana Kurttila ( 1997 ) and Dan Horst ( 2002 ). The Ponies have also produced four All-America recipients , starting with Tony Scheuerman in 1985 . Jeff Kogl was similarly honored in 1990 , followed by Morehead in 1996 ) and Kurttila in 1997 .
See Boys soccer , Page 12