The Holy Angels boys soccer team was as surprised as anyone to find itself — the reigning Class 2A state champion — competing in Class 1A this fall.

The Stars’ enrollment dropped below a rising cutoff between the state’s two smallest soccer classifications. But size hasn’t changed Holy Angels’ skill. The Stars, who won their program’s second state title last fall, are undefeated (14-0-1) and now face a different path to a different state tournament.

“It actually motivated us to prove to everyone, like, even though we’re 1A, we can still beat the best 3A, 2A teams,” senior midfielder Cristopher Romero said. “That’s something we always strive for.”

A change of scenery

Holy Angels head coach James See said that typically if a school’s enrollment falls in the bottom 10% of a size classification, the school receives notice from the Minnesota State High School League ahead of the redrawing of sections that takes place every other year.

If these teams want to avoid being bumped down by other schools’ or co-ops’ growing enrollments, they need to apply to “opt up” by late January, before realigned sections and classes are announced.

The Stars were at the 12.5th percentile in Class 2A and figured an opt-up request wouldn’t be necessary to remain in their class. That was until the start of April, when Holy Angels got word it was four students shy of the cutoff and would be back in Class 1A, where the Stars won their first title in 2019 before soccer expanded to three classes in 2021.

See said the team was disappointed it couldn’t defend its 2A state title, but the players “took it with perspective.”

The section they were shifted into — Class 1A, Section 3 — is one that holds at least three veritable state title contenders. Only one of Holy Angels, three-time defending state champion St. Paul Academy and highly rated Minnehaha Academy can reach the eight-team Class 1A state tournament, per the MSHSL’s section formatting.

“They’re objective-minded,” See said of his team. “We’re going to approach every game by our objectives. We’ve embedded those principles over nine years. … They’re ready to hit their own internal marks.”

A change of style

The Stars wrapped up September ranked No. 14 nationally in the United Soccer Coaches National Ranking. Senior center back Thomas Hopkins and senior left back Alan Ruiz have anchored what See called a “strong defensive bedrock” that has conceded only three goals this season.

The Stars had already stuffed their regular season full of their usual Class 2A opponents and some Class 3A contenders, including Minnetonka, No. 1 in Class 3A and also the team Holy Angels defeated 1-0 in its season opener.

See graduated from Holy Angels in 2005. He said the team’s defense-first philosophy, efficiency in transition and execution on set pieces aren’t new to a program.

But other than consistent results, the Stars are “completely different than where we were just five years ago,” See said after the team clinched the Tri-Metro Conference title with a 4-1 win over Bloomington Kennedy.

Holy Angels’ surrounding community, Richfield, has diversified, and so has the school and the Stars soccer team. Players from different backgrounds blend their soccer styles together into a squad that has “kept a lot of the DNA that’s made us successful” but can be “different in different phases” of the game, See said. “It’s fantastic.”

Hopkins has felt the change.

“In the previous years, we’ve more relied on strikers to just boot the ball up and go chase,” he said. “This year, I feel like we’re finding way more ways in through the middle and just connecting passes.”

See said the ability to adjust is a portion of success.

“You look at longstanding successful programs and teams, it’s the teams that can do different things or solve different problems over a long period of time,” he said.