Tipp soccer finishes successful preseason

With a pair of successful preseason scrimmages last week, the Tippecanoe boys soccer team used the challenges to prepare for Tuesday night’s season opener against league-foe Troy. This is a crucial early season matchup in the Miami Valley League. Tipp defeated DeSales 3-2 and Bexley 2-1 and now will travel to Bellbrook on Thursday night following their Troy opener.

“We learned more about ourselves against DeSales in regards to our mental toughness and togetherness, and that’s good to see in the second week of August,” Tipp coach Joel Slyman said. “We had a player go down and was not able to come back into the game and our guys stepped up. We got down a goal and guys really came together and played for each other and stepped up in moments. We scored two goals kind of late and held on.”

“We saw a lot of positives where guys are coming together as a group and taking on a role and owning it. It was a good effort getting the victory and more importantly we learned more things about our culture and our team.”

Scoring for Tipp was Dominic Mendiola, who scored twice, and Colin Turner added one off a great lead from AJ Jergens.

“Dom stepped up and that’s what you want out of a senior,” Slyman said. “He showed his true leadership. We also expect Turner to get goals from set pieces. It’s only a scrimmage but there is so much to build on to take into our first game.”

Also prior to that scrimmage, the Red Devils hosted Bexley in another preseason scrimmage and Tipp earned the one-goal victory.

“Out of every first scrimmage you expect sloppiness and fitness not to quite be there yet,” Slyman said. “We had guys who were gassed at the end of it but I am proud to see the result. It was good to see them build off of that against another good Columbus team.”

Scoring for Tipp was Cameron Smith who took a pass from Mendiola and the second goal of the game from Mendiola on a penalty kick.

“This is the first time we have scrimmaged both of them and we hope it is an annual thing,” Slyman said. “We try to scrimmage teams who will challenge us and we are ok to travel to these places. There are nine combined state championships between the two programs so you want to scrimmage guys like that.”