Southern Tier Sports ReportELMIRA HEIGHTS — Year two kicked off for the Edison boys’ soccer team, while the Edison girls begin season three.
The two teams got back to work with the start of practices recently.
“Year two at the varsity level,” Edison boys’ coach Shawn Nugent said. “We’ve got 15 guys, we are going to be young again this year, continuing to build and improve and the work continue this.”
Playing last year is a help for the Spartans on the boys side as the players have a year of varsity experienced under their belts.
“Very big, we have a lot of returners this year and some young guys coming up,” Nugent said. “We are going to get them together.”
The Spartans have some key pieces they lost to graduation and will look for guys to take over those roles.
“We lost some real good seniors, but these guys are going to step up and fill those shoes and we will continue to work and see what this season has for us.”
The girls have been working for this season since last year, but things really got into gear when they kicked off practices.
“Exciting,” Edison girls’ coach Kevin Weber said. “The work began 10 months ago for a lot of us. Trying to put the work in to get better. The lure of opening day is exciting to get rolling. You know you are into the heart of the season now.”
The Spartans have solid numbers, and they have the most experience the team has had in the three seasons of the program.
“We are excited,” Weber said. “We have pretty good numbers, just under 20 is what we are expecting. The numbers aren’t a worry, which is always good for a young program trying to build. We are excited for the year.
The last two years, I was telling them, a majority of our team had never touched a soccer ball, or played soccer. This year, every girl coming in either has experience with us, or travel, or modified, so everyone is kind of coming in, we are miles ahead now of where we have started the last two years.”
The team has a good mix of upperclassmen and younger players. And, the younger players all have a lot of experience.
“Our youngest are the most experienced we have, ironically,” Weber said. “The older group has good experience and they know what it’s like at the varsity level, so a good mix of the older experienced with the younger who have played soccer probably their whole lives. So, hopefully we can get them to gel.”
————
PHOTOS BY BRIAN FEES
PHOTO GALLERY FROM PRACTICES:
