Now in his 23rd year coaching boys soccer, Tom Reilly knows a thing or two about making a team better.
And that’s exactly what he plans to do with this year’s Ocean Township boys team, which has already looked pretty good in beating Wall, Long Branch, Freehold Borough and Matawan en route to a 4-0 start.
Despite the perfect mark, Reilly still sees plenty of room for improvement.
“We’re playing better,” the veteran coach said. “We’ve been sorting some things out with every game, and we seem to be improving each time out, which is encouraging.”
This week is a big one for the Spartans, as they faced a good St. Rose team on Tuesday, and will take on the Class B North favorites from Monmouth Regional today. While the winner of today’s game will give that team the early edge in the divisional race, Reilly is quick to downplay the ramifications of today’s showdown.
“It will give us a pretty good indication of where we’re at, but we’re not a finished product yet,” he said. “I’m not unhappy with where we’re at, but we still have a ways to go before we can worry about beating some of the top teams in the Shore.”
With a lot of new players starting this year, the Spartans are looking to develop into a balanced squad, and they’ll need to be successful.
“We lost a lot of our goal-scoring,” Reilly said. “I think the guys who graduated scored about 80 percent of our goals last year, so we weren’t really sure where we’d get our goals from. So far, we’ve spread the scoring out throughout the team, and I think we’re going to have to continue to do that to be successful.”
Early on, the results are promising.
“We’re really a team whose sum is better than the individual parts,” Reilly said. “They’re all contributing.”
Senior Ben Lowy has made the move from sweeper to midfielder this year and has been the team’s offensive leader so far.
“He’s played very well,” Reilly said. “He’s scored some nice goals for us, and a lot of things we’re trying to do are running through him.”
Goalie Lucas Rhoads has also looked strong in the early going, according to his coach.
“He’s new to the team, but he’s playing very well,” Reilly said. “He’s made some big saves already.”
Reilly also praised the play of senior Mike Recchia.
“He’s played both up front and in the back for us,” the coach said. “He scored a big goal against Freehold on Saturday, and has also been very solid on defense. He’s like our utility player … he goes where we need him, and he contributes a lot.”
Overall, the Ocean boys have impressed their coach with their early play. However, as always, Reilly sees plenty of room for improvement.
“This is a different group of kids, so they need to learn where each other’s going to be on the field,” he said. “We’ve been a little slow in that regard because they don’t know each other that well.
“We definitely have some work to do as a team, but I’m not unhappy with where we’re at,” he added. “If we played the state playoffs tomorrow, I’d have some concerns, but we have some time to get better.”
Better than 4-0? That’s a demand only a coach can make.