Cono makes interesting mix work

WALKER - Their roster tells a real good story.

First off, there are 19 names but only 18 boys in the entire school.

There's a Matt Miller and an Alex Wilson, not to mention a Ben Baron. There's also a Dong Woo Kang, a Sang Hyun Lim and a Min Gyu Cho.

You might recognize their head coach's name. Adam Belz is a reporter for SourceMedia Group News.

According to the Iowa High School Athletic Association, theirs is the smallest school in the state, with a BEDS documented enrollment of 23 in grades 9 through 11. Yet this interesting collection from a small rural boarding school in northern Linn County is the 15th-ranked Class 1A boys' soccer team in the state.

The Cono Christian School Warriors won an IHSAA-sanctioned postseason game for the first time Monday and are two games from qualifying for an IHSAA state tournament for the first time. Even if that doesn't happen, this season has been a success.

“I think this year we've come together more as a team and kind of built better relationships with each other,” said Miller, a starting defender.

The better relationships have been built on a team that's more than half foreign. There are 10 players from South Korea, including captain Yong Kyum Lee.

The Koreans are here to learn English and prepare for American colleges. Cono also is home to U.S. kids like Miller of Lawrence, Kan., who comes from what Belz calls “incomplete families.”

It's a mix that seems to work.

“Two years ago we had a lot of Ethiopians, too, so we've been a pretty international team for a long time,” said goalkeeper Woo Jung Kim. “I think we're pretty good at coping with each other. When we're in the field, we're only allowed to speak English, so that helps us (communicate with each other).”

“Everybody says that when you play against Cono, they are going to have good foot skills and good passing skills,” said Belz, a Cono graduate whose father, Andrew, is the school's president. “But where you can beat them is by being more physical. So our guys are going up against football players from Monticello, football players from Independence. It's like a whole new mindset, particularly for the Korean guys, to use your body, use your shoulders and initiate the contact instead of always being acted upon.”

This is the fifth year Cono has had IAHSAA- and IGHSAU-sanctioned soccer teams. The boys are 9-7-1, the girls 7-3.

The school plays other Christian schools and home-school teams in volleyball, basketball, fall soccer and track. The Warriors have three home-schooled kids.

“We have a new coach, and he played soccer before at this school,” Kim said. “So he understands how the players feel. He's a very good coach. He knows how to relate to people, not just on the soccer field but in their daily life.”

“It's been a pretty good season,” Lee said.

Just pretty good?

“Well, we had a perfect season (last fall),” Lee said. “This is my last year at Cono, so I wanted a perfect season again.”

 Here are videos of the Warriors practicing Tuesday on their campus.