Local product Christian Oxner will be back with HFX Wanderers FC next season.
“Being able to play football in the city I grew up in is amazing and I want to take the opportunity like I took it this year and enjoy it and have fun and I can’t wait to get back out on the field,” Oxner said in a news release.
Oxner was the backup to international veteran Jan-Michael Williams to start the year but eventually played his way into a more prominent role, finishing the season tied for fourth in the CPL in clean sheets with six.
“The goalkeeper position is a key position in the spine of a team and this shows the confidence we have in Christian,” Wanderers head coach Stephen Hart said in a news release. “He showed his composure and made some big saves and commanded the box very well and I was impressed with his competitive nature.”
The Halifax native is a product of the Dunbrack minor program and the Saint Mary's Huskies. He spent five seasons in the AUS and also backstopped Western Halifax FC to a national senior men's championship in 2017."Christian epitomizes the type of player we want to build our club around and we couldn't be more proud of how he embraced his opportunity and earned his way onto our 2020 squad," club president Derek Martin said in a news release. "Our club and our league was created for athletes like Christian and we look forward to watching him continue to grow as a player and a person in the years to come."
Hart will announce more signings in the coming weeks, with the hope of adding players who will help the Wanderers improve on a 6-12-10 inaugural season that saw them finish last in the Fall Competition.
“We have no illusions of where we finished in the table and with that in mind we have prioritized a certain manner in which we want to rebuild the team,” Hart said.