Last season was one of retooling and rebuilding for the St. Mary’s boys soccer team, with a number of junior and sophomore players earning the bulk of the playing time. Now, as a new season is about to begin, the Spartans are aiming to continue that growing process.
“We’re still a young team and we’re still continuing to grow, but we do have some experience coming back,” said St. Mary’s coach Mike D’Agostino. “Things are coming along and we’re continuing to get better every day, and we’re working on building up that maturity as well.”
The Spartans are bringing back a number of key contributors to the 2020 squad, including senior captains Jackson Nickolau and Eduardo Toranzo. Nickolau recently completed a virtual running of The Boston Marathon, while Toranzo has spent the past several months training in Spain.
“It’s great when you see your guys out working hard on their games,” said D’Agostino. “All summer, I saw Jackson running around Wyoma Square. Eduardo did a lot of great work over in Spain. It’s great to see them take so much pride in their games.”
Despite several players opting to do remote learning and therefore opting out of the athletic season, there are still a number of Spartans expected to make key contributions this year. Juniors Richie LeBrun and Ryan Fraher along with freshmen goalkeepers Jacob Guarino and Cian LeVasseur will all be looked upon to play well. In addition, D’Agostino sees a lot of promise in his younger ranks of sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders.
“Having guys opt out of the season due to remote learning was a bit of a surprise, but I’m sure a lot of other schools are dealing with the same thing,” said D’Agostino. “We have a lot of young talent on this team and they’re going to be put in a position where they get a chance to show what they can do.”
The Spartans have gotten back to practice and have started the process of getting used to all of the new safety modifications put in place by the MIAA and the Massachusetts Department of Energy and Environmental Affairs. Some of those rule changes include no heading of the ball and no bodily contact of any kind.
“I have a couple of players who play with their body, so it’s definitely going to be a bit of an adjustment,” said D’Agostino. “There’s a lot to pay attention to in terms of the rules, things like no heading and no throw-ins and things like that. But we’re adapting to it. I think this year will be much more of a possession game and a pass-and-move game.
“We’re having a scrimmage next week with a referee so that should help give us all a better idea of what we’ll be dealing with,” D’Agostino added.
St. Mary’s opens up the season next Saturday, Oct. 3 against Matignon at Austin Prep at 3:30 p.m.
“We’re all looking forward to getting back out there,” said D’Agostino. “We understand how fortunate we are to be able to get a chance to go out and compete, so we’re going to go out there and have fun with it. We play in a strong league with some great competition, and it’ll be nice to get out there and continue to build up what we’ve been working on with these guys since last year.”