Back in 1982, Springfield High School adopted soccer as a co-ed sport during a time when soccer was still emerging in popularity in the United States. It would take another decade and the nation hosting its first FIFA World Cup for people’s interest in soccer to really explode. Surely a championship wasn’t on the minds of many people when it was first introduced at Springfield, but 40 years later the school experienced its first taste of championship glory. This past fall on a cool, windy evening in Bowling Green, the boys’ soccer team won the school’s first-ever league championship in soccer. Springfield’s 20-man varsity roster was comprised of nine seniors, six juniors, four sophomores and one freshman. This group compiled a 7-0-3 record in the Northern Lakes League’s (NLL) Cardinal Division, going undefeated in league play for the first time ever. Much of the team’s offense was generated by the sophomore duo of Aiden Sloan and Kyle Mortus. Aiden and Kyle both received First Team All-League honors, and Aiden also was honored as the NLL Cardinal Division’s Co-Player of the Year. Seniors Nick Winslow and Aaron Adams also were recognized with Second Team All-League honors for their work in the middle and up top, respectively. Leading the Blue Devils’ defensive effort was junior goalkeeper Cole Murphy, whose play also was recognized as he earned Second Team All-League honors. In addition, the team would not have been able to celebrate its success without the contributions from the rest of the squad which included these seniors: Brayden Brown, Abel Eyob, Drake Holmes, Brendan Hunker, Reese Miller, Jackson Sloan and Brendan Tarris; juniors: Taylan Akdeniz, Ruslan Musa, Grant Sponseller, Bryce Steinmiller and Aiden Ziehr; sophomores: Lucas Trease and Alex Russell, and freshman: Tristan Geske. These young men have much to be proud of as they will always be remembered as the school’s first soccer team to have won a championship.
It is also important to acknowledge the coaches as this win was an accomplishment for the entire program. Winning a league championship does not simply happen overnight. While the players certainly won the games on the field, the adults associated with the team have been part of a larger push over the last two decades to develop soccer within the Holland-Springfield community. The team was led by head coach Adam Sloan (NLL Cardinal Division Coach of the Year) and assisted by Brian Foos, Crystal Ellis, Jacob Sloan and Andrew Sarra. Coach Sloan, specifically, has been a fixture within the Springfield soccer community for the last decade and has poured his time and energy into helping Springfield soccer grow and thrive. He started out coaching for the then Springfield Futbol Club (SFC), which eventually merged with the Greater Toledo Futbol Club (GTFC) and now operates as GTFC West out of Homecoming Park. He then served as the president for SFC and continued to coach three of his four sons there.
In the fall of 2016, Coach Sloan began as a junior varsity coach with the boys’ soccer program and then was hired to be the head coach in 2019. He has coached at Springfield High School since then and has continued to coach travel soccer with GTFC. His work with SFC and GTFC allowed him to get to know the majority of the athletes on the current roster before they were in high school and the same is true for many of the school’s future athletes. Coach Sloan’s assistant coaches have been involved similarly with SFC and GTFC, creating a connection between local youth soccer and Springfield High School. It is worth mentioning Coach Sloan’s work over the past decade not to provide him with extra attention, but to point out how he and others like him, including coaches and parents, have helped enhance the soccer community by providing dedication, commitment to excellence and stability.
For a while, the only opportunity to play soccer in Springfield was recreational soccer with the Springfield Soccer Association. This changed with the advent of Generation Next Athletes of Tomorrow, which later became SFC. Travel soccer found a home in Springfield and gave its youth an opportunity to level the playing field with neighboring communities who already had travel soccer programs established.
The current players on the boys’ soccer team and Springfield High School as an institution are both the beneficiaries of a system and culture that was built by the hard work of its current coaching staff and all who have had a hand in developing soccer in the Springfield area for the past 20-plus years. Finally, all involved can call themselves “champions.”
