Experienced Penn Hills boys soccer roster looking for strong finishing kick

By: Josh Rizzo
Sunday, August 15, 2021 | 10:01 AM

Senior defender Tyler Stewart and his teammates have spent all summer helping the Penn Hills boys soccer team develop a strong finishing kick.

The Indians want the upcoming season to have a different feel to it. When the game gets into its final minutes, Penn Hills wants to be at its best.

Stewart, who suffered a hamstring tear and missed all but three games last season, felt the Indians faded late last season.

Finding renewed effort to finish games may help Penn Hills, which finished 3-12-1 overall and 1-12-1 in section play.

“On the scoreboard, in the first half we held some of the best teams to 1-0 or 0-0 at halftime,” Stewart said. “In the second half, we either didn’t have strength to go through or just stopped being aggressive. That’s where we broke down last year.”

What will help Penn Hills is the team’s returning experience. The Indians started nine freshmen, a junior and a senior last season.

Gaining that experience allowed the younger players to develop an edge.

“We are going to play physical and aggressive,” Stewart said. “We don’t give up and we showed that last year with how many injuries we had to go through.”

Penn Hills will have three seniors — Charlie Rosemeyer, Josh Lee and Stewart — in the lineup this season.

“They are bringing that leadership and culture to the table,” Indians coach Ryan Hankey said.

Sophomore goalie Landon Hankey and junior forward Lenny Duncan will also play important roles for Penn Hills.

Duncan said the playing time last year taught him an important lesson on how to win games.

What Penn Hills has been working on during its summer practices is improving effort and grit.

“We learned we can compete. We have to play the whole game,” Duncan said. “We want to work harder than any other team.”

Hankey believes Penn Hills has all the components to have a competitive squad this season.

“Our expectations are high this year,” Hankey said. “I’ve been preaching a standard and expectations and every year other teams lose seniors and we only lost a couple seniors last year. We are pretty much minus one or two the same team as last year.”

Tags: Penn Hills