JERRY WOLKOWITZ Allentown’s Andrew Barlow controls the ball during a game against Princeton on Monday. The game was postponed shortly after it started due to weather conditions,
After three years of playing a set schedule of games, a group of seniors on the Allentown High School boys’ soccer team are hoping to play a few at the end of this season that don’t appear on theirs.
After suffering through three consecutive sub .500 seasons, this crop of players has one goal — make the playoffs.
"Our goal is to make states," third-year head coach Joe Stanzione said. "We’ve got a few three-year varsity guys here that have never played in a state tournament game, and they know this is their last shot at it. We know that there are certain games that we’ve got to win in order to do it."
The Redbirds are coming off an 8-11-1 season, although they were never really that close to qualifying for the states.
"We went on a bit of a run at the end of the year, but were pretty much out of the playoff hunt early on," Stanzione said. "We’re going to need to get off to a better start this year if we’re going to make it."
Allentown has been successful thus far, posting a 3-1 win over Trenton High School in its season opener. However, Monday’s matchup with a very tough Princeton team was postponed when rain and lightning began to make its way into the area just a few minutes into the game.
Stanzione has five starters back from last year’s team, and is looking for those players to help lead his newcomers through the year.
Senior forward Dave Griffiths is back after leading the Redbirds with 12 goals last season, and already netted his first tally of the new season in the game against Trenton.
"Dave’s looked good, and we’re hoping to get him on the right track immediately because we’re going to need his scoring," Stanzione said.
Also back are senior forward Andrew Barlow, senior back Zack Smith, senior midfielder Joe Key and sophomore midfielder Dave Nicholson.
Among the newcomers who Stanzione hopes can step up and play solid varsity ball immediately are sophomore midfielder Steven Gorfman, junior midfielder Brett Marrinson, sophomore midfielder Trevor Provost and senior back Mark Fennimore.
Senior Matt Vernon is the team’s keeper and has looked good in the early going, according to his coach.
"Overall, we’ve looked OK," he said. "We just need to play at a very high level right out of the gates. We know what we need to do, we just have to execute it."
The Redbirds play in the competitive Colonial Valley Conference where they are supposed to play teams from schools of comparable size. However, as Stanzione pointed out, it doesn’t always work that way.
"We’re supposed to be playing the smaller schools, but look at our schedule and we’re facing a bunch of Group IV and Group III schools, and we’re Group II," he said. "There are only two other Group II schools on our schedule."
Stanzione also said that many of his players come to Allentown with limited experience on the soccer field, compared to kids from areas such as Princeton and West Windsor where kids participate in clubs and leagues practically year-round.
But he said he remains confident that his team has a legitimate shot at the playoffs.
"If we play well and go out and play hard every game, we should be able to compete with most of the teams on our schedule," the coach said. "We need to maintain our style of play, not giving up bad goals, and stay in the game for the whole game.
"I think we’ll be competitive even against the better teams on our schedule," he added.
The Redbirds will get a look at some of those teams in the next few weeks. They were scheduled to face West Windsor-Plainsboro South yesterday, and will travel to Ewing tomorrow. From there, they will face Hamilton West on Monday and Hightstown on Wednesday.
Hopefully they’ll get off to the fast start that eluded them last year. This year’s seniors are counting on it.