By David Shaw

For Salisbury Post

GRANITE QUARRY — The Lost & Found Award goes to Ivan Landaverde, but we may need to see more evidence before his name is etched on the trophy.

As the leading goal-scorer for East Rowan’s improved boys soccer team, the senior striker is helping dig the Mustangs out of South Piedmont Conference purgatory — where they’ve resided the past four seasons — and into the 3A playoff conversation.

“We’ll leave the past in the past,” Landaverde decided following a recent practice. “This is something new. We haven’t been a very disciplined team the last few years. All we would do is joke around before and after games. We didn’t take the game seriously. This year we actually want to win.”

East is winning, though its program is stuck somewhere between growing pains and the frustration of not growing quickly enough. The Mustangs began the season with just one victory in their previous 48 conference matches (1-46-1), so hopes weren’t sky high back in August. But even after Monday’s competitive 3-1 loss to Carson, they’ve gone 4-7-1 overall, 1-7 in league play and taken a sturdy first step toward recovery. They’ve outscored opponents 27-19 and posted shutouts in the season’s first two games.

“It’s not a turnaround yet, but it’s been a heck of an improvement,” said rookie head coach Nermin Hodzic, ER’s fourth in five seasons. “They got what, three or four wins the last four years?  When I took this job in July, I had to change the culture, change their habits, change how they practiced. When you get your teeth kicked in for that long, it’s hard to feel pride. That’s one of the things we’re trying to instill — and that starts with me.”

You may remember Hodzic from his days as a heady West Rowan ball-handler more than a decade ago. Or as a successful boys cross country coach at East from 2019-22, when he won an North Piedmont Conference title and was named conference Coach of the Year. It’s early, but he seems capable of steering East’s soccer program toward brighter days.

“It takes a little while,” the chiseled, 160-pound Landaverde said. “But the biggest difference has been the coaching. (Hodzic) has turned us into a team.”

It’s a team that features Landaverde, a one-time under-achiever who has netted 10 goals and emerged as East’s not-so-secret weapon. “He’s evolved,” said teammate Marcus Hoyt, East’s senior goalkeeper and the current SPC saves leader. “He’s always been big and tough, one of those players who can push his way through a defense. He gets his way. Now he’s gotten better at reading the play, reading the ball and getting to an open space where he can actually shoot from.”

Landaverde has morphed into a player who is equally dangerous without the ball as with it — and he can thank Hodzic.

“He’s improved tremendously without the ball,” his coach cooed. “That’s where most of his goals are coming from. He’s recognizing space he can move into, then getting there and converting tap-ins. You watch him and he’s like a prototypical No. 9 from Europe — a big, tall physical guy who wins a lot of aerial bouts, wins those one-on-one battles and completes plays. But he’s also moving a lot more and that’s helped his game.”

He was unstoppable in a Sept. 11 victory at South Rowan. Four times he found the back of the cage, lifting the Mustangs to their first conference triumph in 31 months. “As soon as the game started, we went right after it,” Landaverde said with boyish enthusiasm. “We didn’t hesitate at all. It all kind of happened really quick.”

“One thing we’ve changed is how we start games,” added Hodzic, a UNC Charlotte graduate and popular social studies teacher at East. “Against South, we started fast. We started strong. We hit them in the mouth and made them react to us.”

Landaverde has been aided and abetted by creative center midfielder Carter Honeycutt, who doubles as a kicker for East’s football team. The senior distributor has potted eight goals and earned 13 assists for a team-best 27 points. “A playmaker,” Hoyt called him. “Every team needs a guy like him.”

And every team needs a finisher like Landaverde. Despite his prominence on the pitch, he’s yet to draw interest from college recruiters. Is he expecting a call?

“I don’t think so,” he said with a subtle head shake. “But if I end up getting an offer, I’ll probably take it.”

Hodzic, a native of Bosnia, knows there’s room for improvement in Landaverde’s overall game.

“He’s still very raw,” he offered, pausing to measure his words like a 2-0 fastball. “His first touch is not that great. His shooting ability could be better. If he would have committed the last two years to this sport — and been coached up properly — he’d be really, really good. If I could have had him for three years, he’d be a monster. Right now, he’s a good high school player having a good year.”

And quite possibly, one deserving of a trophy.