24-year head coach David Floeck. / Photo by: Sue Moss
The Panthers made the postseason last fall, but were unable to make the bang they hoped for, bowing out to Hingham, 2-1, in the Div. 1 South quarterfinals, capping the season at 14-2-4.
For the Whitman-Hanson Regional High girls’ soccer team, the goal remains the same.
“We want to get better every day and to be playing our best soccer towards the end of the season and hopefully that means we’re in the tournament and we can make some noise in there,” said 24-year W-H head coach David Floeck, whose team hasn’t had a losing season since 1999.
The Panthers made the postseason last fall, but were unable to make the bang they hoped for, bowing out to Hingham, 2-1, in the Div. 1 South quarterfinals, capping the season at 14-2-4.
“Going out in the second round of the tournament, that’s not something we wanted to see happen,” Floeck said.
Finding the back of the net was admittedly a challenge for W-H, which scored a nine-year low 51 goals. Now, with 44 of the goals back, scoring shouldn’t be an issue anymore. The now-sophomore trio of Olivia Borgen (eight goals), Nora Manning (eight goals) and Kelsee Wozniak (team-high 11 goals) netted over half of those tallies last season.
“They’ve worked on the physical part of their game and came back bigger, stronger and faster,” Floeck said. “They certainly have worked on things they needed to work on. We’re extremely impressed with the type of years they had last year, but if they duplicate that, we’d be disappointed because that means they didn’t grow.”
A striker, Wozniak was an EMass first-team selection and earned a spot in the Patriot League All-Star game, and she should be the catalyst of the offense yet again.
“She has the chance to go down as one of the best players we’ve ever had in this program when it’s all said and done,” said Floeck, whose program has churned out All-Americans in three straight seasons. “I don’t know that we’ve identified a ceiling for her yet. She has tremendous potential.”
Senior midfielders Riley Bina (captain), Anika Floeck and junior midfielder Alexis Billings will also be crucial assets to the offense.
Though, question marks do loom, in terms of experience, on the other end of the pitch, with the graduation of defender Olivia Johnson (starter for Endicott College), four-year starting goalie Skylar Kuzmich (starter for Hofstra University) and All-American back Sammy Smith (starter for Boston College), all of whom were captains last fall.
But the Panthers do return some talent back there, in seniors Sam Perkins (league all-star last season), Erin Wood, Courtney Woodward (captain) and sophomore Ava Melia.
In net, there’s a healthy competition going on between juniors Reese Codero and Kylee Colclough.
“They’ve been working with [Skylar Kuzmich] all along and both gotten varsity experience due to injuries or different opportunities,” Floeck said. “We feel pretty good about both of them. If we think both are at the same level, we can split them or they can play different games.”
Floeck said the Panthers’ strengths are their flexibility and depth.
“We have a number of players that play different positions,” said the coach. “We have a number of people who can put the ball in the back of the net, so if teams start to take away one aspect of what we’re doing there’s other players that can take advantage of that. We’ll have six or seven kids on our bench that can come in and score or help us defend.”
W-H opens its campaign at home Wednesday, Sept. 4 at 6:30 p.m. against league foe Plymouth South.
“We had a couple games that we didn’t perform at our best and it cost us the league championship,” Floeck said. “We’re gonna try to work on that to make sure we don’t have those missteps because we’re in a league where if you go out and lose a game or tie a game you shouldn’t have, it’ll cost you.”