LYNN — The English girls soccer team just can’t seem to catch a break.
After a tough 2018 season that saw the Bulldogs go 3-15-1 and lose eight seniors to graduation, the 2019 season was set to be one where English could turn the page and start fresh.
“It was a tough year last year for sure,” said English coach Ed McNeil, now in his 15th season at the helm. “We’re trying to turn the page, but we have some challenges in front of us. We were coming into this year with some good, experienced players, but then the injuries came.”
Three projected key players for the Bulldogs coming into the year — seniors Brooke Zahine, Kaitlyn Bowden and Jenny Matul — are now out with injuries that could jeopardize their entire seasons. Numbers were low for tryouts last week as well, meaning depth might be an issue for this year’s English team.
“We’re really hoping that we can get the numbers up at next week’s practices, because depth is a concern when you start out the year down three players right out of the gate,” said McNeil. “We did have several girls who were on vacation at the start of practice this week, so hopefully our numbers will go up moving forward.”
But it’s not all doom and gloom for English. There are a number of promising players returning to the field this year, including last year’s leading scorer Melissa Zayas. As a freshman in 2018, Zayas scored 17 of English’s 21 goals on the season and was the clear driving force of the offense. She returns now as a more experienced sophomore, but McNeil sees that as a positive and a negative.
“She was such a great player for us last year, she was really all of our offense,” McNeil said. “But the problem with that is, all of the opposing teams know that now too. She gets an awful lot of attention out there on the field now, so it’s going to be important to give her help.”
There are also rising young players like sophomore sweeper Arianna Garcia, who will have a bigger role on the team this year. Sophomore Elyse Newsom also stepped up to fill the void at goalie and played well in some exhibition games over the summer.
“We do have some good young players who we’re excited about getting out on the field and seeing play this year,” McNeil said. “Arianna should be able to help a little bit on offense and Elyse looked really good in net early on, so we’re trending in the right direction there.”
And then there’s the senior leadership that will be on the field this year in Julianna Perry, Ravyn Rapley and Dayana Gamboni.
“Those three are going to be our leaders this year, for sure,” said McNeil. “Julianna is very impressive, she’s also the captain of the softball and basketball teams. Ravyn plays basketball as well and Dayana is a good leader, so we feel really good about those three.”
Things aren’t going to be made easy for the Bulldogs in terms of their schedule, as a number of high-powered programs — Danvers, Marblehead, Beverly to name a few — are back on the docket for this year. McNeil knows that the key to competing against those good teams will be to have some solid depth on the roster.
“The schedule is not going to do us any favors, that’s for sure,” said McNeil. “There are some very tough teams in the Northeastern Conference, and we face most of them in a stretch of two weeks during the season. It’s going to be tough.”
The Bulldogs open the new season in the Lynn City Soccer Tournament against Tech Sept. 7.