Dramatic Turnaround for 2011 Soccer

Unlike last year, the Ledyard High School boys’ soccer team had much to celebrate when players, coaches and parents gathered two weeks ago for the team’s annual Awards Banquet.

“We had three wins in each of the two previous seasons, and this year we had 14 wins. So a pretty dramatic turnaround,” said coach Bill Glenney. “The team was fairly tight-knit group, and that started this summer, with the workouts the kids were going through two or three days a week and the tremendous amount of focus from everyone there.”

Glenney, who has coached soccer at Ledyard for nine years, said the unity of this year’s team was remarkable.

“People talk about this year’s team, and we didn’t really have any one stand-out, elite player. But we didn’t really have any holes, either. I would say we were above-average across the board.”

Key contributors included senior captain Zach Ash, a third-year starter.

“He was kind of where everything got started. This summer it was, this is what we’re doing, and he organized everything. Along with junior Anthony Saccone, they basically ran our offense and helped run our defense. They were both All-Conference, and Anthony was All-State.”

Also making substantial contributions were Dave May and Zach Higgins, who together accounted for 22 goals.  “Throw Zach Ash in there and that’s about 80 percent of our goals for the year.

Saccone, who scored five goals and had seven assists, will be back next year, as will most of the team’s defense.

“Anthony is one of the top three players in the region,” Glenney said. “We didn’t really need him to score this year because we had other guys doing it. But he definitely has the capability to score multiple goals throughout the season.  

Jason Smith in goal will also be returning for his fourth year. So he’s pretty strong back there,” Glenney said. “He gives us a solid peace of mind.”

The 14-6 Colonels advanced to the second round the state playoffs, knocking off Lewis Mills before falling to Holy Cross.

We played horribly in the first round, and were lucky to come away with a win,” Glenney said. “Then we played really well against Holy Cross, but just couldn’t score. I thought we dominated throughout that game, but as I told the kids, we dodged a bullet in the first round. We probably didn’t deserve to win that one, and karma has a way of coming back and biting you.

Still, a exceptional season in which Ledyard won the ECC Medium division crown with a 9-1 conference record, put two players on the All-ECC Team and on the All-State Team, and at one point were ranked 9th in the state.

Congratulations on an outstanding year!