Lely’s 3-0 shutout of Estero on Friday, December 19, could best be described as workmanlike. Trojans coach Robbie Schank, in year 32 at the helm, has coached—and won—a lot of games over that span.
Schank got after his young team at halftime, even though they were sitting on a 2-0 lead.
“Yeah,” Schank said. “Sometimes we’ve got to do that.”
But that doesn’t mean the coach isn’t pleased with his talented but inexperienced squad.
“I thought it was good,” he said, “we scored early. We controlled it. We got the clean sheet.”
A clean sheet in soccer is a shutout.
“We didn’t get scored on,” Schank said, “so that’s always a good thing. We didn’t have to go too crazy because we had the comfortable lead in the first half. And then we just tried to limit it. We just controlled it, slowed it down. If we have the ball, they can’t score. That’s always a blessing when we’re on our attacking side.”
Senior Ty Collins, who leads the team with 18 goals, started the scoring with a close-in goal just three minutes into the game. Eight minutes later, freshman Daniel Otero nailed a goal from 30 yards out. Collins finished the scoring by advancing the ball from midfield, then scoring in front of the Estero goalie with two minutes left in the game.
Schank has just three seniors on his squad. He sees his team’s overall youth as a good thing and a challenge.
“The strength of our team is youth,” he said. “It’s a very freshman, sophomore underclassmen-laden team. Our weakness is just the lack of experience. We don’t have that senior leadership because we don’t have the experience. So, I’ll have to use my experience to guide them through that.”
Fortunately, Schank has a couple of outstanding seniors.
Ty Collins executes a header in front of the goal as teammate Carson Kimbler looks on.
“We’ve got Ty up top,” he said. “He’s always a threat, and he’s rusty. He got beat up in football. So, he’s still nursing a couple little injuries. So, we don’t have him at 100 percent. But he’s always a threat. If he gets the ball, you’d better be on your A game. And we’ve got another senior, Stive Argueta. He’s been commanding the middle for us with his hustle and his tenacity.”
Another leader for Schrank is an underclassman.
“In the back, we’ve got Landon Harmon,” Schrank said. “He’s a sophomore on the left side. He’s our setup man in the back. He’s been really putting the ball up through and creating the attack from the back.”
With his team sitting at 8-3-4 heading into Winter Break, Schrank has an interesting plan for his squad.
“We have a bunch of alumni teams being set up that we’re going to be playing here in the evenings,” he said. “They all want to challenge this team.”
So how does Schrank see this team stacking up against some of his better Lely teams over the years?
“This one’s right up there with them,” he said with a smile. “And the postseason will show you that. We still have some key components out with injuries right now. When those guys arrive, we will be alive.”
Lely travels to Palmetto Ridge on January 6, then returns home against Cape Coral on January 13. Both games are at 7:00 PM.
