Lexington United SC Boasts 4 BAYS Section Champions

Playing on a sports team as a child is a really great experience – it gets you outdoors, introduces you to new friends, allows you to learn a sport, stay active and play on a team. There are so many positives.

So it’s no surprise that a few coaches of the Lexington United Soccer Club (LUSC) travel teams spoke so highly of the organization and the experiences of all involved while reflecting on the 2010-11 season.

LUSC is a youth soccer program that began more than 30 years ago, from an effort by the town's Recreation Department, volunteers and parents. Teams in the competitive portion of the club compete in the Bay Area Youth Soccer league.

Overcoming opponents

This season, four LUSC teams won BAYS sections: BU14 Athletic, the GU12 Tigers, the BU12 Royals and the GU11 Minute Ladies. Athletic, the Tigers and the Royals all earned spots in the playoffs.

The seventh- and eighth-graders of BU14 Athletic finished undefeated, with eight wins and two ties.

“We had a great season,” said coach William Troop, who played soccer as a child, in high school and informally in college. “The team stayed together from fall to spring. And the spring season we had a great season, ended the season undefeated, which is why that allowed us to win our section in the BAYS tournament.”

The boys beat the Newton Lions 2-1 in overtime in the quarterfinals last week, but were defeated 1-0 by the Framingham Strikers in the semis. The Strikers eventually became the BAYS Division 2 champions to earn a spot in the state tournament run by Massachusetts Youth Soccer.

“We had a very close game with this Newton team,” Troop said. “Very closely matched. The first half ended 0-0. We went ahead 1-0 in the second half and I’d say with about 10 minutes to go the Newton team tied it and then both teams had chances to win in regulation time, but it ended 1-1 and in the overtime in the first 10 minutes we scored.

“Both our goals were exciting,” Troop continued. “They were breakaways, and one of our fastest players, Colin (Chiakpo) took on the defender, got past him and calmly flooded the ball past the goalkeeper. We held on for the win.”

The GU12 Tigers finished their season with eight wins as well, along with two losses to earn a playoff berth. For the Tigers, it was their first experience in a playoff atmosphere.

“We’ve been together for 13 seasons,” said coach Cathy Counsell. “Much of the team has been together for years; some since kindergarten.”

The girls beat the Franklin Huskies, 3-2, in overtime in the quarterfinals last week, but fell two nights later to the Norwood Lady Revs, 1-0, in the semis.

In the Tigers’ 3-2 win over Franklin, the opponent scored first in the opening half, but the Tigers tied it 1-all and came out and scored again to start the second half. Franklin came back to tie and push the game into overtime.

“From there we were just three minutes into overtime, there are two 5-minute overtime periods. We ended up scoring and held them back for the rest of it,” Counsell said.

The GU11 Minute Ladies aren’t old enough just yet to try for playoff games, but second-year coach Brian Lavelle said a highlight game for him was against a team from Winchester.

“My high points would be I like to see us play technical games and win. When you play the proper game, you don’t just play to win,” he said. “Our best game was against Winchester, it was a 3-2 win for us. Very close game, evenly matched, we just sort of prevailed, everybody had to dig in and stay ahead when you get ahead.”

Lessons learned and challenges met

But their success stories haven’t come without hard work, hours of practice and the importance of overcoming challenges.

“The regular season we had a very difficult (autumn),” Troop said. “We were up one division in 2A and we had a difficult time. There’s two age groups together, 13 and 14, and 13 for the first time is going from 8v8 to 11v11, so, in the fall, we had a hard time adjusting.

“Much bigger field, more of a need to play as a team, less reliance on just individual skills, and that was (hard).”

Counsell said scoring was something that was always a focus for the GU12 Tigers.

“We worked on that the most,” she said.

And the girls’ sizes also came into factor.

“Physically we need to be very strong on the field. That’s something that continued to be a challenge. We’re small, (and) not (yet) very strong physically,” Counsell said.

“Some of them can be smaller; some of them can be taller,” agreed Lavelle on the difficulty of size. “We have that stretch throughout the 12 girls.

Another challenge during the season was “getting every girl on the team to progress in some particular way,” according to Lavelle. “Issues (we) try to improve; seeing that nobody gets left behind (is) hard to do sometimes," she said.

“Some kids can’t make it to all the practices and they might not get as much playing time (since they’re) out of sync with learning the style that they missed at practice,” she said.

But, with every challenge mentioned, the coaches were set on achieving and exceeding.

“It was challenging to get these boys playing as a team where they were holding the ball more and holding it around in a more organized fashion,” Troop said. “In practice, young players like these guys, they love to do a lot of exercises." 

That meant doing a lot of drills emphasizing posession and keeping the ball, even making up some drills as they went along to help the young players use the width of the field, according to Troop.

“So really, all season long (we) practiced that,” he said. “Learning how to pass the ball forward but then not necessarily crashing through the wall of defense but bringing it back to your support. If the forward is met by pressure, they can pass the ball backward for help. My goal for the spring season, by the end, we were doing that really well."

Counsell said her GU12 Tigers overcame their struggle of scoring to knock in 25 goals in 10 games, while allowing their competition to score just six on their net.

“We did great on that,” she said.

Winning more than games

According ot Lavelle, LUSC and Lexington have provided exceptional opportunities for kids and he feels that parents should encourage their children to get out and play.

“I don’t think I’ve never met a (child) who doesn’t like the experience,” Lavelle said.

Counsell agreed, saying that LUSC has been “phenomenal” and that her players “got more than they expected” during their season.”

Troop felt similar, saying, “I like the way that some of these players are still kind of learning some of the finer points of soccer and just the progress that is made over the course of one season (is great).

“I get a lot out of coaching these boys,” continued Troop.

For more information on LUSC, visit http://lexingtonunited.org/.