A South, Group 2 Sectional Title and a trip to the Group 2 Championship game have the Pirates boy’s soccer team aiming high for the 2015 season. Despite losing some firepower due to graduation; the Pirates are posed to defend their sectional title when the season begins this week.
The Pirates return top scorer Pat McCarthy (17 goals, 10 assists) after a stellar junior season. He is one of the team’s captains in 2015 and helped organize summer practices and games for the team. McCarthy was chosen by the coaches, while the other two captains, Sampson Abah and Tom Long, were voted to the position by the 11 seniors.
Fourth-year head coach Jay Meile spoke about the roles of the captains and the entire senior class this year.
“This senior class is a tight-knit group. The three captains should be proud of their position, but it really goes as far as the senior class takes it. If the senior class wants something, it will get done whether they have a captain band or not. I like to use them as mini-coaches when I can.”
Junior goalie Mike Deal is back in net after a stellar sophomore season in which he stopped 156 shots, including six games with double digit saves. Deal and the Pirates defense recorded 9 shutout victories in 2014 en route to a 19-5-2 record.
Meile said that the coaching staff has been stressing competition throughout camp and the pre-season.
“Competition. Last year’s team kind of had a number of guys returning to a starting spot. This year, there are a good four to six spots open. We say compete amongst each other and compete against our opponents. All the schools we scrimmage are bigger than us and there’s a reason for that. They might not all be soccer players, but it could be the starting shortstop of the baseball team. They are athletes and are Division I recruits in other sports.”
Coming off the success of 2014, Meile and his coaches will look to keep the boys even-keeled in 2015.
“The playoffs aren’t even discussed. We focus on our division. If we do well in our division, that takes care of the playoffs. Our first goal is always to win a division. Besides the Olympic-American, our division is the next-best division. We are the only ones who play Rancocas Valley twice, Moorestown twice, Burlington Township twice and Northern Burlington twice. It makes it very hard to win a division, but it is one of those things where if you compete at that level and go out of conference or out of division, we usually do well because we are playing at such a high level.”
Meile continues to stress to the players that there is a bullseye on their backs because of their success in 2014.
“The biggest thing I say to the kids is that we have a bullseye on us. Everyone we play wants to beat the team that won a South Jersey championship. The same goes for Rancocas Valley. They have a bullseye because they won the division (Liberty) last year. They are the team to beat.”
Boy’s soccer opens the 2015 season on the road Thursday, September 10 at 3:45pm with a game against Northern Burlington.
