Last season, Fabian Gromenida emerged as a huge star — not only for the Olds College men's soccer team — but for the Alberta Colleges Athletic Conference (ACAC) as a whole.
This season he won't have to carry the team on his back as much, head coach Niels Slotboom says.
"Last year he really burst onto the scene. It'll be his third year this year. The first year he was with Olds he was plagued by quite a few injuries so he didn't get to his full potential," Slotbooom says.
He says because he's such a threat, other teams have double-teamed Gromenida — even triple-teamed him occasionally, to neutralize him as an offensive threat.
Slotbooom says that can — and already has — worked to the Broncos' advantage.
"I'm sure Fabian will have the same impact as he had last year, regardless of how many players are being put on him. But now we have players around him who can make use of having that extra space," Slotboom says.
One example of that was a Sept. 6 game versus Ambrose University, which the Broncos won, 4-0.
Unfortunately, that power didn't carry over into the Broncos' next game, which they lost 3-0 to SAIT.
Although they have Gromenida, like their female counterparts, the male Broncos will have to win as a complete team, Slotboom says.
"It's very high level competition on the men's side and you really need that depth from even just your starting 11 players to the people on your bench, which is what we have," he says.
"So now it's going to require a bit of maturity from the players to really get more consistent and continue to put everything together on the field."
As of last week, the Olds College men's soccer team was not ranked nationally (they had a 1-1 record at that time). However, Slotboom is confident they can get there.
"We're sitting somewhere in the middle of the league right now. Everybody has just played their first weekend. Some teams have only played one game, so right now it's pretty tough to tell on the men's side," he says.
He notes the Broncos tied King's University Eagles 1-1 and they were slotted ninth out of 15 teams in the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association rankings last week.
This weekend, the Broncos will play Lethbridge College Kodiaks and the Medicine Hat College Rattlers.
The Kodiaks should provide some pretty tough competition, but the Broncos can handle them, Slotboom says.
"We tied them both times last year."
Slotboom says it's hard to say what the Rattlers will be like this year because they've just undergone a coaching change and a rebuild.
