Friday, March 29, 2024
K-M senior Kollin Johnson battles along the boundary for a loose ball in a scrimmage against Rochester Century on August 20.

KoMets ready to bring energy to the pitch

New Kasson-Mantorville boys soccer coach Leo Barbosa knows what it takes to win. As a passionate player that grew up in Brazil, he has come to the states to help instill his passion into his players. While passion is just part of the question, Barbosa is making sure that his players know that it’ll take more than passion to stay atop of the HVL this fall.

“We’ll have to work hard,” Barbosa stated. “I told the boys that I come with a different methodology than [Coach] Bahr and they’ve seen a lot of new things. It comes with work and it will pay off, I’m pretty sure about it.”

Barbosa comes into his first season as former coach after Dave Bahr retired after the 2015 season.  After serving as the junior varsity coach a year ago, Barbosa made sure to pay attention to what Bahr had been doing with the team. Now, he gets to use that advice and tries to lead the KoMets to a HVL title and perhaps a deep run into the playoffs.

“He was a great advisor,” Barbosa said of Bahr. “He kept me really close to the decisions he was making and that was really important to me.”

As for the team he inherits, Barbosa will have plenty of firepower to work with. Kollin Johnson will help pace the offense on the attacking end while Max Kundert will also move up from right defense to the center position in hopes of creating some offense.

“Kolin is our striker and he’s going to give us a lot of speed up front,” Barbosa observed. “Max is going to have a bit of transition, but he also brings us a lot of energy.”

Energy is one thing the KoMets haven’t lacked, but the ability to score goals has disappeared from time to time. While K-M’s defense has kept itself in games, they also know that putting the ball in the net is necessary to

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