With all of the high school varsity programs enjoying success this fall season, the future just keeps getting brighter for these teams with the up-and-coming players from the Cinnaminson Middle School.
This past weekend we touched on the undefeated season for the CMS field hockey team and we have news of another undefeated season as the middle school boy’s soccer team played to a record of 15-0-1 in 2015.
The boy’s soccer team enjoyed 15 victories this year, with two of them coming against a very strong Moorestown program.
“There were three really good teams we played,” head coach Jon David Schroeder said. “Moorestown was good. Bordentown was the team that tied us. Beating them the second time, because they tied us the first time, was good. Moorestown is always a good rivalry. We beat them 1-0 and 2-0. Both of those felt pretty good.”
The middle school boy’s soccer team excelled at ball distribution en route to their 15-0-1 record.
“We distribute the ball really well,” Schroeder said. “We possess the ball in transition well and the way our team passes was superior to most of the other teams we played. It enabled us to have multiple guys on the team in double-digit goals. So, if they keyed in on one particular player, we had four or five other players that could put the ball in the back of the net.”
The Pirates did not play from behind much at all this season, trailing by one goal just twice.
“Bordentown may have been one of them,” Schroeder said. “There were two instances all year where we were down a goal. One of them was against Northern Burlington Monday, 1-0. We scored 3 or 4 in the second half to win.”
“Fortunately, through the year, we didn’t face too much adversity. Most of the time we had the lead. We scored multiple goals in a lot of games, which allowed us to play a little more possession. We were never behind by more than a goal.”
Middle school boy’s soccer was so dominant this season that the team outscored its opponents 67-16, for an average goals against of one goal per game played.
“Any of the games where we would let up a goal and the other team would start developing pressure, we made sure everyone was in their best possible positions. The kids were willing to play their positions the entire season. They put themselves on the backburner and the team on the frontburner. They were not selfish, which really helped out.”
The team is comprised of sixth, seventh and eighth graders. Two of the sixth graders played a large chunk of minutes this season, with a couple other sixth graders seeing time with the A-team off the bench.
“It was a mix of everyone together,” Schroeder said. “If we had just taken seventh, or just taken eighth, we would have had a few holes. Those holes were where the sixth graders came in and filled them. One of our sixth graders was the third-leading scorer on the team.”
A couple of years back the school board and the district decided to create an A team and a B team, then extended it to let sixth graders play, which improved the overall talent of the program.
“It enables for better on-the-field play. There were times where a seventh grader had the talent to play on the eighth-grade team, but couldn’t because he was in seventh grade. We don’t have to look at whether the player is in seventh or eighth grade anymore, just the talent of the player and how much they can bring to the program.”
As with middle school field hockey, there are no playoffs for middle school boy’s soccer team.
