By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
Mike Flynn won’t be surprised if his Florence High boys soccer team gets off to a slow start.
With six starters to replace from last year’s 4-10-1 team, the Flashes are still a work in progress. How quickly they mesh, particularly on defense, will go a long way in determining where they finish in their new division, the Freedom Division.
”We might start off slow, but I’m hoping as guys start filling in roles and become more comfortable with it, I hope it’ll get better,” said Mike Flynn, who begins his 12th year as head coach. “There’s definitely a big learning curve. We’ve been looking at different lineups, different subbing patterns. Fitness is another concern. We have some young guys — so how they hold up will be interesting.”
Florence could have used a few more scrimmages to work out the kinks as they try to find who can help them where this season.
”We lost about six starters from last year’s team,” Flynn said. “We’re working on fitting a lot of new players in.”
The main focus of the preseason was trying to figure out as completely as possible who will fill the holes left by the half-dozen graduates. Flynn was cautiously optimistic about the progress he saw through the preseason.
”It went OK,” he said. “We’re working a lot of new guys in. It was hard to get a set unit in there. We were giving a lot of players looks. We scored some goals. Defensively, we have to tighten up a lot, then we’ll see what happens.”
The preseason gave the Flashes their first tests in competition, and gave them a glimpse of what they can expect this year from their schedule.
”We’ve played Pemberton, and we played Westhampton Tech,” Flynn said. “Every team has a few players that they rely on. I think it’ll be the same for us. Riverside has a few more experienced players than some teams from what I know. It’ll be a close race, I think.”
The Flashes hope they have the intangibles to make the difference at the end of the season. The team consists of: Shawn Carmignani, Adam Swiderski, John Steele, Kyle Pukenas, Nick Stovall-Kurtz, Russ MacArthur, Conner Phelan, Khavon Duarte, Zach Ronyack, Greg Perri, Chris Popso, Joe Chianese, William Blakeslee, Arnold Petras, Daniel Belcher, Keith Glidwell, Kristian Ramos, Chris LaBaw and Kellen Groover. Each player will have to find his role to make the Flashes reach their potential, while the established leaders do their part.
”Greg Perri, he’s got to score some goals,” Flynn said. “Zach Ronyack, he’s another forward/midfielder, he’s got to really control the tempo of the game. He has to make the guys around him a lot better. Another guy we’re counting on is our goalie, Kristian Ramos. He did a nice job last year. He’s got step up his game a bit and really dominate the box.
”Russell MacArthur, he’s a guy who played midfield last year and moved back to sweeper. We’ll count on him to keep the defense solid. Adam Swiderski, he started last year, and this year will have several roles. He could play defense, he could play midfield. He’s one of the guys that I could stick in anywhere against a team where I see we have a weakness and he’ll help us out.”
If everything goes well, Florence won’t need to move Swiderski around much because their weaknesses will be shored up early.
”Our biggest thing so far has been defense,” Flynn said. “We’ve put a lot of new guys back there. They have to step up and play better. We have a lot of new guys in the midfield.
”Some guys are really going to have to step up. It’s going to come down to some guys that haven’t played a lot to step up and make a positive contribution.”

