By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
Rosters full of seniors and other players with experience is the theme of most of the boys soccer teams in the Packet area this season.
At Princeton High, 17 players are back for a team looking to make a return trip to the Mercer County Tournament final. At West Windsor-Plainsboro South, seniors dominate the roster for a team looking to rebound after winning just four games last year. Montgomery returns 14 players – nine seniors – from a year ago and the Hun School also has a large senior core.
At Princeton Day School, a big senior class graduated after helping the Panthers to the MCT and Prep B championships. Meanwhile, WW-P North will be helped by a strong contingent of juniors and sophomores.
At Princeton, Wayne Sutcliffe lost some key players from a year ago, but still had a large returning group to build around.
”We have 17 back from last year’s team so we’re happy about that,” said Sutcliffe, whose team lost to PDS in the MCT final and reached the second round of the state tournament. “Kyle (Ehrenworth) and Ben (Davis) have established a good place in the group. They, along with Ajami (Gikandi), Zach (Halladay) and Aiden (Passanante) are the five that were all key members of a state championship team.
”Zack and Aiden were freshmen that year and they have played a lot of games in a Princeton shirt and know what it takes to have success and have a clear mind.”
Some of the returning players are more experienced than others, but they all have been part of the winning tradition at PHS.
”We have such a large group coming back that not everybody was getting on the field,” Sutcliffe said. “We knew last year we had to rebuild the team from ‘09 with the idea of getting it right on the field for last year and this year.”
WW-P South has five starters back and a 14-player senior class as it looks to improve on last year’s 4-12-1 season.
”We have had a good pre-season and are looking forward to CVC play,” said Bryan Fisher, who is in his first full season as head coach after serving as the interim head coach last year. “Our goal as a group is to move forward this season, stay positive and play good soccer. This group of young men deserves a positive experience and we are working hard on making that happen.”
Seniors Chris Campbell and Troy Fernandez return as starters on defense, while senior Christian Castro and junior Kevin Mannion return as starters in the midfield. Junior Jordan Brand returns as a starter up front. Campbell and Castro are the Pirates’ captains.
Montgomery has nine seniors among the 14 players who return this season. Leading the group of seniors are captains Matt Mayewski, Kieran Kemmerer and Corey Atanda.
”We have good senior leadership starting with our captains,” Montgomery coach Rickey Steeb said. “The boys have been working very hard this pre-season. We’ve scrimmages some very good CVC teams. We have a good mix of upperclassmen and young players. We are looking to get better every day.”
The other seniors on the Cougars’ roster are Mark Wronko, Matt Paftinos, Shane Gaffey, Bradley Raw, Lucas Arfinengo, Lawrence Mazzeo and Kyle Blumenthal.
At Hun, Pat Quirk has a roster heavy in seniors but not necessarily heavy on experience. The Raiders are looking to capture their third straight Mid-Atlantic Prep League title this year.
”We have a lot of seniors, but not a lot of varsity experience,” said Quirk, whose team has nine seniors on the roster. “We have one full-time starter back and five who played a lot last year. We have a lot of three-year JV players coming up. Every year we get a kid that has played JV for three years that shines and comes up and helps. Hopefully we get some of them this year.”
Frank Villaverde is the top returning player for the Raiders, while seniors Oliver Van Pelt, juniors Jared Golestani, Alex Griese and Nick Revano, and sophomores Bailey Hammer and Andres Gonzalez saw time last year.
”We’re losing an irreplaceable back line,” Quirk said. “We’re hoping the seniors will be able to teach and show the young players how to work and play as a team.”
Hun suffered some severe storm damage to its fields from Hurricane Irene, but Quirk is hoping the fields will be ready for the start of the season.
”We’re working on the field,” Quirk said. “We’re going to try to blow the dirt off. We had our first scrimmage (Friday) and you could tell Allentown had been playing a lot longer. I still have bubble kids with me. We don’t open until the 16th so we have some time.”
At PDS, the Panthers are coming off a great season in which they won a pair of championships. But a huge senior class graduated after that season and this will be a relatively new cast trying to defend MCT and Prep B titles.
”There was a void left by the seniors,” PDS coach Malcolm Murphy said. “That group from the beginning of the year had so many leaders. They wanted to play college soccer, which the majority has done. They have made some good club sides and school teams. It was the fact that in their senior year they wanted to be winners. Psychologically, that overcame everything for them.”
The Panthers return four key seniors to the mix this year in tri-captains Rui Pinhero, Paul Zetterberg and Connor Gibson, as well as goalkeeper Jacob Eisenberg. Seniors Brendan Clune and James Sanderson are back along with juniors Willie Cara, Taran Oslander and Absnel Esteban. The newcomers include a trio of freshmen in Andrew Mitchell, Marco Pinhero and Zack Golden.
WW-P North is another team that will be building around a younger nucleus, although the Knights do have some key ingredients back.
”We have some guys back,” North coach Trevor Warner said. “AJ Carnevale and Lee Rabin have logged time. Ryan Siegler on defense and Jason Foster are also back. We have good core back with juniors and sophomores. We also have a nice addition from football with Chris Banks.
”We have a long way to go and it is quite early but I like what I see so far. I think this senior group was somewhat disappointed with the season last year and came in with drive and energy and wants to succeed a little bit. I think a season like last year tends to educate you and you appreciate your good times.”
