By:Rich Fisher
The Cranbury Rangers Soccer Club is no longer an exclusive men’s club.
And that’s just fine with the current club members.
A new under-9 girls travel team has been formed and will be competing this fall in the Jersey Area Girls Soccer (JAGS) league. The team has been formed by head coach Dan DiLella and assistants Paul Howard and Ray Miezin, who coached the nucleus of the squad for two seasons in the East Windsor PAL in-house league.
“We had a recreation team that was good,” DiLella said. “It was a second-and-third grade league, and most of our girls were in second grade and were from Cranbury. They went undefeated playing in a league at a younger age, so I talked to Paul and Ray and we said ‘Let’s see if they have a travel league we can become involved with.’
“You have to find a league that is going to be convenient. I talked to some parents and they’re going down to Virginia for games. We didn’t want that. The JAGS looked like a good league for us. Most of the games are in Mercer County. They’re either down Route 1 or down Route 130.”
When putting the team together, the coaches made a concentrated effort to keep the roster limited to Cranbury residents.
“I really didn’t want to have kids from other towns,” DiLella said. “If we’re going to do it, let’s do it with girls from Cranbury. If we bring kids in from other towns and they’re good, they’re going to take playing time away from the Cranbury kids.
“I’m hoping they’re competitive. The rec team was good and it was young. We have some pretty good athletes coming up and the town is getting bigger.”
The roster includes second-graders Allison Kelly, Joanna Casey, Jenna Petrucelli, Kate Johnson, Erica Howard, Stephanie Miezin, Felicia Wang, Jennifer Conover, Cara Vincelette, Sarah DiLella, Amanda Chen and first-graders Veronica Spawn and Kirsten Holswade.
The team, which has yet to be named, will debut in the fall. Home games will likely be at Millstone Park on Old Trenton Road, the same place where the Cranbury Rangers boy’s and men’s teams play.
The team is still playing in the PAL League this spring. DiLella hopes to begin practicing in late July and get some pre-season scrimmages before the real season begins.
Although the travel competition will be at a higher level than the Cranbury team played against in the East Windsor PAL, the coaches are not about to cause their squad any undue pressure by warning them of their upgraded opponents.
“We’re just going to let them go out and play,” DiLella said. “I think they’ll figure it out themselves that the competition is tougher. But most of them are very athletic, they’re bright and very aggressive. We couldn’t ask for more.”
