Cheboygan's freshmen log vital experience in season-opening soccer clash against Roscommon

CHEBOYGAN – Bob Miller knows his team is going to take a ton of lumps this season.

But what the Cheboygan boys soccer coach also knows is that those experiences his youngsters have this fall will pay dividends somewhere down the road. Tuesday was one of those times for Miller’s shorthanded Chiefs, who opened their campaign with a 7-0 home loss to Roscommon.

“We had a week of conditioning and started practice last week and every guy out here has gutted out a lot of work,” Miller said. “We’re going to end up with 11 (players). We’ll have no subs, but that’s not completely foreign to us because we’ve had 13, but I’m proud of them.”

Here’s some takeaways from Tuesday’s opener in Cheboygan.

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Running out of gas

The first half wasn’t so bad for the Chiefs (0-1), who managed to create some chances during the early stages against the Bucks (1-0). However, Roscommon showed off its offensive firepower when Josh Mayes gave the Bucks a 1-0 lead just over six minutes into the contest with a long-range shot. Mayes added another goal later in the half and Landon Mann helped the Bucks go up 3-0 by scoring with just 30 seconds before the break.

While the Chiefs weren’t necessarily poor in the opening half, the lack of depth showed later in the game.

“It’s probably not going to be a focus on wins and losses this year but character development and team development,” Miller said. “We got out of that game without being mercied, and we only had 10. They’re in the fire and they’re going to be there all year, no one’s coming to help, it’s them, so I’m very proud of them.”

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Ruthless Roscommon

Even though they led comfortably at halftime, the Bucks weren't at their best in the opening 40 minutes. But the second half was a different story for Roscommon, which completely controlled things and built a commanding seven-goal lead as Mayes recorded a hat trick, Keaton Pratt scored two twice, and Owen Barned added a goal.

“It was mainly how they came back in the second half and started putting more pressure on the ball and how they started passing it a little bit better,” Roscommon coach John Sinnaeve said. “At first, they were passing right to the other team, but the second half they were starting to get those through passes to people who were open.”

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Learning experience

Not fielding a full team hurt the Chiefs, but if there was a silver lining, it was that Miller saw several freshmen make solid impressions in game one. Among those were Hayden Wheelock, Peyton Willey, Trenton LaHaie, Abraham Preston, Hunter Lockwood, and Landon Tebo. Leading the upperclassmen were juniors Brady Lockwood and Luke Marsh.

Overall, not bad for a first time out.

“Half the team is freshmen, they’ve never played at the high school level, and I think our freshmen were standouts today for their work ethic,” Miller said. “Everybody was positive and keeping each other up. I told them I’d rather get into a bad situation with a few people I knew who wouldn’t run away than a whole army of people I thought might run away.

“They proved that with each other, and I’m kind of excited because this bodes well for our future.”

Cheboygan hosts Kingsley in its first-ever Northern Shores Conference matchup at 4 p.m. on Thursday.

Contact sports editor Jared Greenleaf at jgreenleaf@gannett.com . Follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter @sportsCDT

This article originally appeared on Cheboygan Daily Tribune: Cheboygan's freshmen log vital experience in season-opening soccer clash against Roscommon