Posted on 08 September 2015 by ldevlin.
NEWTOWN SQUARE >> This time three years ago, Charlie Dodds looked at the group of Marple Newtown soccer players assembled before him and faced a decision.
He possessed a smattering of veterans, guys whose leadership probably outpaced their technical ability on the field. And he had a group of freshmen who showed obvious talent, albeit raw and in need of refining, but whose ceilings as players were high enough to make even a grizzled, veteran coach like Dodds wonder what could be with a few seasons of polishing.
Dodds concluded that the best thing for his players and his program was to let that group of precocious freshmen play from the start, taking their lumps on the varsity field and learning their lessons a year or two sooner than their peers at other schools.
That choice has charted the course of the last three seasons, and Dodds hopes the result of all those growing pains is a spectacular senior season for what he regards as the most talented group he’s coached in seven seasons at Marple.
“I think we’re finally going to get our chance to win it,” senior defender Aaron Corr said. “We’ve always had flashes of when we were very good, and just everybody else was bigger and they would dominate us. And we would lose unfortunately. But we’ve always been building up to this year to try and win.”
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Posted on 08 September 2015 by ldevlin.
The stratification across classes is oddly pronounced for Strath Haven, which is anchored at both ends of the field by the strength of senior All-Delco goalkeeper Katie Fisher and junior All-Delco forward Liz King, along with speedy classmate Maddie Forbes. The midfield is fortified by veterans, including seniors Annike Kruse and Carly Glassford and junior Claire VanDuyne, who saw time in defense last year.
The backline, however, is largely inexperienced. The group that includes seniors Julianne DeCarlo and Meagan Laird, junior Kacy Hafertepe and sophomore Liz DeCarlo saw time last year as Gino Miraglia is always adept at rotating his players, but none bring the kind of experience that the Panthers have had in years past.
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Posted on 08 September 2015 by ldevlin.
CONCORD >> Most people in Paul Costa’s position four years ago wouldn’t have been thinking about their day jobs.
Costa sat in a funeral home in January 2012, watching the stream of well-wishers bid farewell to his father, Mario, after a nearly two-decade battle with cancer. The Garnet Valley girls soccer team that the younger Costa coached wasn’t, for a rare moment, foremost in his mind. Until they arrived at the funeral, the entire squad, to a player, to help their coach grieve for someone who was a fixture on the sidelines for years.
“That’s when I knew I was successful as a coach and we were successful as a program,” Costa said at a recent practice. “Wins and losses didn’t matter anymore. We achieved our goal at that moment, and it was through (my father’s) hard work.”
Plenty of teams break their huddles with the call of “1, 2, 3, Family.” Fewer show up to a morning practice in late August overseen by a figure like Costa, wearing a shirt that reads “The Family,” the words hanging from the marionette strings from “The Godfather” logo.
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