Cyclone Boys’ Soccer Looks to Rebound After Tough Early Schedule

Cyclone Boys’ Soccer Looks to Rebound After Tough Early Schedule -

(4-10-26) – Confidence is high, even if the results aren’t showing it early.

Cyclone Boys’ Soccer Coach Levi Culp expected the changes this season to take some time to show results, especially with a difficult early schedule.

“The first few games were going to be ugly because we've changed almost everything that they used to do from when I was here two years ago as an assistant coach. Our warm-ups are different. How we play is different. Everything's different. So we've expected a little bit of this, of a setback to start.

“But… we've played two very, very good teams and there was a couple minutes in both of those games where we fell apart for a bit and they were a lot closer than the scores showed. A lot closer.”

Harlan Community faced a top-ranked Treynor team to open the season and fell 5-1 while a very good St. Albert team stopped them 3-0.

Landon Nihsen, who has the lone goal for the Cyclones this season, uses his speed to create chances. But with Nihsen also participating in track, Culp wants his offense to learn to create opportunities that don’t necessarily rely on quickness.

“It's really nice to have that speed from Landon. We're working really hard to get our offense to create chances without that speed due to the fact that he's also in track. So we'll be missing him for about half of our games as well and I want him to be able to create chances not relying on their speed anyway so that when we play some tougher opponents, that's not the only thing we're looking for.”

Culp has been impressed with the play of goalkeeper Lucas Paulsen, who’s made 23 saves on 31 shots to start the season.

“A lot of the positive stuff that I'm seeing from Lucas is that he's stepped up big time this year. He's been a lot more brave. He's controlled his box a lot better this year and he's more decisive with what he decides to do.”

But preventing turnovers, especially near their own goal, will be key for the Cyclones to turn things around moving forward.

“Basically every day at practice we are putting them under that type of pressure, putting them in those scenarios where we did turn those balls over, the balls over near our own goal, and we're continuously working on our boys' ability to control the ball and pass it without panicking and having to clear the ball. A lot of that comes with just reps, repetitions and just getting touches on it over and over and over again.”

Harlan Community will host Riverside at Merrill Field on Friday.

View past scores by visiting the Iowa High School Athletic Association's website, Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union website,
or Iowa Quik Stats