What’s next for soccer in St. Cloud as the sport continues to grow in popularity?
ABOUT THIS SERIES: "Growing the game: The rise of St. Cloud soccer" is a three-part series diving deep into soccer's evolution in the St. Cloud area.
Dec. 10, 2019.
A game-changing day in the future of soccer in St. Cloud.
Buried in the shocking news of St. Cloud State University cutting its football program due to budgetary concerns was a small detail: SCSU still needed an NCAA-sanctioned fall sport for men to replace it.
And soccer was its choice.
More:Soccer is gaining popularity in St. Cloud. Here’s why.
How do you start a program from scratch? With no players, no conference − and a pandemic?
Only two months later, Sean Holmes was hired, facing the tall task of building a program from scratch to begin play in six months.
SCSU also had to find a conference to play in. The Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference sponsors women's soccer and is home to nearly every other SCSU sport, but that isn't the case for men's soccer.
I would like us to be a beacon for other schools to say this is important.
St. Cloud State soccer coach Sean Holmes
The COVID-19 pandemic delayed that start to the fall of 2021, giving ample time to prepare the Huskies for the Division II level and find a conference in the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
Success doesn't come easily. Long bus trips to Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa yielded few wins, with SCSU's only road win coming against St. John's in September. The Huskies did pick up three conference wins at Husky stadium in a 4-13-1 campaign.
As the only Division II men's soccer team in the state of Minnesota, there's not exactly a blueprint for success. Holmes coached Drake University for nearly 20 years at the Division I level, and relished the challenge of building something new on the banks of the Mississippi.
"There are nine Division II schools in the state of Minnesota; I would like us to be a beacon for other schools to say this is important," Holmes said. "One day − and it might be in 10 and 20 years from now − that all of a sudden the whole NSIC is playing (men's) soccer. Growing the sport collegiately is very important to me."
SCSU midfielder Emmanuel Iwe signed a pro contract with Minnesota United after his first year in St. Cloud, getting consistent time with MNUFC's second team. He made his opening first-team appearance against Premier League-side Everton in a July friendly in St. Paul.
Iwe, a St. Louis Park grad, was one of 14 Minnesotans on the team's inaugural 28-man roster. Austin native Andres Garcia led the team in goals and recorded the first hat trick in program history.
Recruiting in Minnesota and creating pipelines for talent
Take a quick look at commits for the 2022 season, and a vast majority hail from the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The Huskies have also added their first local Tech High School grad in goalie Nicholas Lalonde.
Recruiting a diverse group of Minnesota-born talent is something Holmes is clearly passionate about.
"We could've gone completely foreign ... but we wanted our team to represent modern Minnesota," Holmes said. "Guys from all over the state, in the cities representative of the modern population that is Minnesota."
Players now are doing things as middle schoolers and high schoolers that I wasn't even doing in the college setting
Tech head coach Dan Stoterau
There are still hurdles to overcome: building a winning program, breaking through in an established conference and battling with newly elevated Division I St. Thomas for recruits.
Progress was made in year one, and Holmes said he wouldn't mind more competition at the DII level if more schools add the sport. Growing the game always takes precedent.
St. Cloud is becoming a soccer town
The 21st century hasn't only sparked a rapid rise in teams at the youth level. Players want to keep playing competitive soccer once they finish high school, and now there's multiple local teams to join that compete across various leagues in Minnesota.
Granite City FC, established in 2016, plays in the United Premier Soccer League each spring. The club plays teams from around the state, while the league is filled with teams composed of either former or current collegiate soccer players. Granite City FC had Tech graduate Andrew Holmes feature in midfield this season before heading to Division I University of Evansville.
St. Cloud Dynamo FC got its start in the Minnesota Amateur Soccer League a year later in 2017, winning promotion three straight seasons to sit in the top division. It has expanded to two teams in different divisions, featuring plenty of former local high school stars in its summer season.
"There’s only a handful of us left that first played in 2017," Dynamo player Logan Lommel said. "We’ve tried to make it sustainable. … It’s nice that we have something here.
“There’s a lot of grassroots stuff going on where you can play soccer.”
New teams are also expanding at the high school level. ROCORI High School first started boys and girls teams in 2016, with the boys team reaching its first section final last year. Tech secured its fourth-straight section title with a 1-0 win, denying the ROCORI Spartans their first trip to state.
A nearby town like Albany is also dipping its toe into soccer at the high school level for the first time in 2022, fielding a junior varsity girls team.
And not only are more teams popping up, but the talent is also rising along with it.
In the summer you can drive around the area and it’s soccer kids on every field.
St. Benedict head coach Steve Kimble
Young soccer players are developing at incredible rates. Just ask Tech head coach Dan Stoterau, who played Division III college soccer at Minnesota-Morris for five years after playing on Tech's first state tournament team in 2008.
"Players now are doing things as middle schoolers and high schoolers that I wasn't even doing in the college setting," Stoterau said. "As far as foot skills and one-on-one work, their technical abilities have exceeded anything I'd seen growing up. The game has already evolved dramatically."
Minnesota becoming known as a soccer state
Soccer has undergone a major transformation in roughly a generation. Global success from United States National Teams surely raised awareness for up-and-coming men’s and women’s players. It’d be difficult to consider it a “niche” sport any longer.
“Soccer used to feel like lacrosse feels right now: like, what is that?” St. Benedict head soccer coach Steve Kimble said, who coached his first girls team in 1995. “Now soccer feels more (like) baseball. Everybody knows what it is. … It’s pretty mainstream now.
“In the summer you can drive around the area and it’s soccer kids on every field.”
Sartell senior Reese Kloezter agrees, saying she’s noticed a rise in soccer-focused athletes in the area. She always has someone to go kick the ball with, jointly raising passion for the game.
Major soccer teams like Minnesota United and community-owned Minnesota Aurora are only a short drive away. Add in the influx of soccer on TV, and there’s plenty of role models for young players to be inspired by.
“Being able to go watch games in person gives women and girls the drive (to) play at that level,” Kloetzer said, who has been particularly motivated by Minnesota Aurora’s success this summer. “It paved the way for us.”
So where does soccer in St. Cloud go from here?
The talent level and soccer IQ should only continue to rise as the next generation is further surrounded by a growing soccer culture.
More youth clubs could emerge, continuing to spread soccer into rural communities. That competition could also make area clubs improve.
Soccer now has a foothold in the community, but more passionate supporters are still necessary to take the next step. Coaching education needs to continue growing. Integrating St. Cloud’s diverse players at an early age would be beneficial. Clubs and facilities need to continue adapting so local talent feels it can remain in the area and still achieve the goal of playing at a higher level.
More national success at the college level or another St. Cloud area high school state title could also inspire another set of young players.
The pieces are in place to take soccer up a notch, and St. Cloud soccer isn’t content with where it stands.
There’s always more room to grow the game.
This is part three of a three-part series on soccer's evolution in the St. Cloud-Area. All three parts are subscriber-only content at sctimes.com.
Here was the print publication schedule for "Growing the game: The rise of St. Cloud soccer".
Sunday, August 28 — Part 1: Emergence
Monday, August 29 — Part 2: Challenges
Tuesday, August 30 — Part 3: Future
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This article originally appeared on St. Cloud Times: Soccer is popular in St. Cloud, Minnesota. What’s next for the sport?
