Coach of the Year: Crown Point’s JR Rosenbaum

Updated: November 23, 2011 10:08PM

JR Rosenbaum nailed it in one sentence: “This wasn’t a typical season.”

No, it wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

But as Rosenbaum looks back now, a couple weeks after the conclusion of the high school soccer season, the Crown Point boys coach can say this: His Bulldogs are state champions.

And they accomplished that feat in one of the most unlikely fashions.

Crown Point entered the postseason with a pedestrian 9-6 record. This was a team that came into the year with high expectations placed upon itself and placed upon it by others.

The Bulldogs were supposedly the team to beat this season. However, as the season wore on, that’s exactly what was happening: They were getting beat. They lost to Lake Central. Then to Munster. They then dropped three straight, including one to Chesterton. And in the second-to-last regular-season game, they lost to Andrean. And they lost big, 5-1.

“We really didn’t get started as nicely as we would liked,” said Rosenbaum, the Post-Tribune’s Coach of the Year. “We had injuries, and people were out of town. We weren’t on the same page. It took us a while to get going.

“We had a bunch of kids who would have been the top player on different teams. But we talked to them and finally got them to buy into the fact that we’re one team, not 15 individuals.”

The Bulldogs figured that out just in time for the postseason. They rolled through the Merrillville Sectional and then avenged losses to Lake Central and Munster in the Merrillville Regional.

It certainly helped that Christian Lomeli — who transferred back to Crown Point this season after playing at Crown Point as a freshman and then transferring to Lake Forest Academy for his sophomore and junior years — became eligible at the regional. But the defense as a whole also was outstanding.

Crown Point allowed just two goals in seven tournament games, including shutouts in the final three games.

“Our defense really came together toward the end of the season,” Rosenbaum said. “We were sloppy throughout the (regular) season. We experimented with some things, and the guys did a great job cleaning things up.”

The Bulldogs scored 70 goals in their first 21 games and none in the final three. Yet, they still won a state title, winning the two games of the Warsaw Semistate and the state title game in penalty kicks after playing through regulation and overtime scoreless.

“Penalty kicks were something we worked on knowing that it was something that could come up,” Rosenbaum said.

Crown Point finished the season 16-6-2. Since the IHSAA-sanctioned tournament began in 1994, no team with more than three losses on the season had won a state title. Until this year.

“We knew we had the talent to win state,” Rosenbaum said. “It’s hard to go out and say your goal is to win state, because there’s so much more that goes into it. But ultimately, what we’re trying to do is turn these teenage boys into men and teach them responsibility and try to help them reach their goals.”

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