Scheer made big impact in spite of size
By: Bob Nuse
At first glance, Jon Scheer isn’t an imposing figure on the soccer field.
But it doesn’t take long for opponents to realize there is a lot of talent packed into that 5-foot-4, 135-pound frame.
"He’s a really good soccer player," said West Windsor-Plainsboro High South’s Brian Welsh, who has had Scheer on his varsity roster the last three years. "He’s not impact oriented, because he’s not that big. But he made us play better soccer the last two years. One thing all high school soccer coaches deal with is club team coaches coming to our games and saying this is terrible soccer. But this year, we didn’t do that. We played good soccer."
And Scheer was a big reason for that. Statistically, he had a solid season with 13 goals and seven assists sharing the team lead in each category with Josh Richards. But his impact was one that isn’t necessarily measured in terms of statistics. Scheer is the quintessential player who makes others around him better.
"I feel like I’m more of a skillful type of player," said Scheer, who completed his career as a Pirate with 19 goals and 10 assists. "I am not big and fast. So I try to use my skills I have to my advantage to benefit the team. I try to look for someone to set up and finish. I don’t score a lot of goals, but I like to get a lot of assists. I am more of a passer than a goal scorer.
"My whole life I have played with kids who were older than me. So I couldn’t dribble the ball a lot or I would lose it. It helped me develop into more of a one-two touch dribbler and find someone to get the ball to."
And he’s about as skilled as they come on the soccer field. In fact, Scheer is one of the most skilled players to come through WW-P in the last 20 years.
"Skill-wise, he is one of the best players we have had here since (Mike) Nugent," Welsh said. "More people over the last two years have commented positively on the way we play. I know we didn’t accomplish a lot of the goals we set for ourselves this year, but I think that was because we didn’t have a natural goal scorer. But we did get a lot of compliments on the way we played good soccer. A lot of that was due to Zac (Howes) last year and Jon this year."
The Pirates started off the season well, going 3-0-1 in their first four games. But they hit a goal-scoring lull that saw them lose three straight 1-0 games to fall to .500. From that point on, goals were often hard to come by. In the end, South finished 10-8-2, with all eight of the losses coming by just one goal.
"We were a good team technically, and we had good chemistry," said Scheer, who will continue his career at the University of Delaware. "We just had too many games where we could not find the back of the net. I thought we played well together. We’re all good friends and it was a good group of guys. Our record doesn’t do us justice. I’m proud of the team.
"Our problem was we would have one slip-up and the other team would take advantage of that. Even though we didn’t win as many games as we would have liked, we played good soccer."
And Welsh is quick to give credit to Scheer for the Pirates playing that good soccer.
"The CVC coaches named him midfielder of the year," Welsh said. "I think he works twice as hard because he’s so little. He’s one of those people who lives the game. We talk about it all the time and we wonder how do you make soccer better in this country? And it is through kids like him. All year he would ask me about coaching points and I have no doubt that at some point he will end up coaching."
Jon Scheer is the Princeton Packet Boys’ Soccer Player of the Year.
"It seemed like just yesterday I was preparing for my junior year of pre-season," Scheer said. "Then I came into this year and my whole mentality had to change. I had to be one of the leaders and set an example the way the seniors before me did. Guys like Chris Wesson, Zac Howes and Eric Voigtsberger were the leaders last year.
"It seemed like my whole high school career went by fast, especially this year. I thought we could have gone farther in the tournaments. We lost our first game in the county tournament and in the state tournament. We had a couple chances in the state game (a 2-1 overtime loss), but I have to give Jackson credit because they came right at us."
While both Scheer and Welsh would have liked a better final record for the Pirates, they are aware that the team played better and better as the year went on, and sometimes that is what matters most.
"I talk the kids all the time that you have to look at the bigger picture," Welsh said. "We lost eight games this year and they were all by one goal. We probably could have won all eight of those games. Our record makes it seem like we were not that good. But I think we were a good team. Soccer is a strange game when you don’t score goals and we had some games where it was real tough for us to score goals."
The Pirates came into the season with a number of new players in the lineup. Scheer and the other returning seniors were able to bring that group together quickly.
"We had a lot of seniors who did not start last year," Scheer said. "The captains me, Glen (Stuart) and Wes (Tuck) we started in the spring getting everybody together so we could be ready to play this year. We had a lot of players step up and we had a lot of holes to fill because we had so many seniors last year. But everyone put the team first."
Now that high school season is over, Scheer will focus on finishing out the club season with his Masa Grizzlies team, while also preparing for college season next fall. He has been part of the state and regional ODP program for the last several years. With the regional team, he has had a chance to enjoy some great soccer experiences.
"We played in Texas last year and Italy last spring," Scheer said. "It’s the top 18 players from the Northeast who are picked to be part of the Region 1 team. We got a chance to play against some great competition. We played the junior national team from Ireland and AC Milan. It was a big international tournament and it was great to get a chance to play against so many different styles of soccer while we were in Italy. I felt myself getting better. It helped bring my game to a whole other level. You have to be focused for the full 90 minutes."
And next year, his focus will be on helping a growing program at Delaware improve.
"Ian Hennessy is in his first year as head coach and he’s trying to turn the program around," Scheer said of the Blue Hens, who finished 6-8-2 this year. "He was one of my ODP coaches when I was younger. I think it’s a good spot for me and I am hoping to be able to help the program improve."
He certainly did that at WW-P South, showing that good players don’t have to come in big packages.

