By David Lazzara
Dominican men’s soccer team are well underway with their season and have been in excellent form during recent games.
The Stars kicked off their season in a less than desirable fashion, losing 1-0 to both Carthage and Loras.
“We started out the year with some players that came into preseason injured,” said head coach Erick Baumann. “John Cronnolly, one of our senior captains, missed preseason due to a summer injury. We started out the season without the main goal scorer.”
Cronnolly’s brilliant scoring abilities cannot be understated since it helps out the team in the matter of confidence and goals.
In the next five games alone, Dominican scored 13 goals: six of them going to Cronnolly.
“John is a big-time goal scorer, [who] scores a lot of goals in his career,” Baumann said. “He has been battling some injuries this year.”
However, Cronnolly is not the only captain of this team. The Stars have four different captains leading the team.
Dylan Alic, a team defender and senior, has become one of the captains.
Alic’s work on the field has already led the team to three clean sheets as well as keeping four of their opponents to only one goal in the matches.
“Last year, he had a phenomenal year,” Baumann stated. “As a junior, he was a Scholar All-American [as well as] a Scholar All-American Player. Just a tremendous player and somebody that you can really count on.”
Fifth-year senior Zach Gamster and junior Brendan Gavin also make up the other team captains.
Playing at defense and midfield respectively, they both have built confidence and chemistry for the team.
Gamster has a goal scoring eye with four goals, two from the past two games.
Gavin was a part of the team, who went to Lakeland University, and won 4-0. After playing the full 90 minutes, the team escaped with a clean sheet.
“Zach Gamster is having his best year [and] doing a fantastic job for us,” said Baumann. “Brendan Gavin is a hard-working, honest player [both] on and off the field.”
Since the first two opening games of the season, the recent form for the team has been strong and only looks to be going up with only one loss. They are 5-3-3 overall and 2-0-2 in conference.
Some highlights of recent matches have been the 3-2 homecoming win against Nebraska Wesleyan and their comeback 3-1 victory against Benedictine.
“Our Benedictine game was a little bit different of a game,” Baumann explained. “At that time, we were struggling with starting games, and we were just not driven and relentless enough on our opponents. [However,] the players responded to that, and we had an excellent second half, winning that game 3-1.”
Looking towards the rest of the season, the Stars are concentrating on keeping up the constant challenge of both performing and training as a team.
“I still believe in what today is probably considered old fashioned, Baumann explained. “[You should] show up on time, put in an honest hard-working training session, learn, compete, get better and leave the ego and selfishness at the gate before you get on the field.”
With the hard work, results, and momentum the team have, it is easy to see why they are considered one of the favorites for their conference.