The building blocks of a good high school soccer program take place during the summer. If the success of the Cloquet summer soccer teams is any indication, the Cloquet High School soccer program should be strong for the next three years at least.
"We've had a very strong summer," mentioned U-16 coach Steve Johnson. "The U-16s have had a very strong year and so have the U-15s."
Recently the Cloquet U-16 squad won the league championship of the Minnesota Youth Soccer Association U-16 Competitive League by taking back-to-back wins over the North Metro Strikers.
"We have played extremely well all season on defense," recalled Johnson. "Offensively we have been very balanced."
In their 5-1 first game win over the Strikers, Cloquet had five different players score a goal. Sarah Johnson, Emily Johnson, Ashton Johnson, Deb Hammond and Sam Isaacson all put up a marker in the win. In goal it was Emily A. Johnson and Mary Keller splitting duties.
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The 4-0 victory over North Metro in game two saw Isaacson, Emily Johnson, Hanna Roy and Jes Vork all pick up tallies as Emily A. Johnson and Keller again provided the shutout.
"I am not surprised at how well this group has done," said coach Johnson. "We have a strong group of girls, with the big core group of kids coming from last year's state tournament team in Cloquet. A number of other girls on that Cloquet team are also on the Cloquet U-15 team which has played well this summer too!"
This week, the Cloquet U-16s will play in the Schwann's USA Cup in Blaine, which is the largest soccer tournament in north America.
"We will play five or six games depending on how far we can go into the tournament," commented Johnson. "The summer work is really the place where you build your programs and the girls are working very hard to get better."
Cloquet won the league title by going an impressive 10-1-1 while scoring 28 goals and allowing only six goals against.
"We really work hard on the defensive aspect of the game," mentioned Johnson. "Up front we are really balanced and that makes us a tough team to defend because we have a lot of girls that can score."
