The Millburn Magic have just completed its best season in team history. In just their second year in existence, the ladies of the local amateur soccer team made a run from the middle of the pack to the Eastern Conference Regional Championships.
In one summer, the fledgling amateur soccer team qualified for the playoffs for the first time ever, hosted a playoff game at Dr. Keith A. Neigel Stadium at Millburn High School for the first time in history, won its first ever playoff game and advanced further than all but seven teams in the Women’s Premier Soccer League.
“It has been a great season, it exceeded all of our expectations,” said Magic Head Coach, Andy Sones, who is also the head coach of the Millburn varsity girls soccer team. “The girls just stepped it up. … Realistically, we were just hoping to get to a .500 record.”
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At one point in the season, a simple .500 mark looked to be a long shot, with the team at 1-3-1. But the Magic won six of their final seven games to close the season with an improbable postseason run. In the 2008 season, their inaugural year, the girls finished in fifth place in the Eastern Division and missed the playoffs with a 3-6-1 mark. The local girls closed this summer with a 7-5-1 record.
Sones said that a 1-0 win against the New England Mutiny (last season’s regional champs), on June 30, was the key to their season. The win made them 4-4-1 and let them know they could compete and win against quality teams.
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“Winning the New England game was huge,” Sones said. “I think when we beat them, we started to think we can beat anyone.”
In the end, the Long Island Fury proved to be a bit too much in the regional championships, as they dispatched the locals 3-0, but wins over the Bay State Select and Lancaster Inferno in the first two rounds of the playoffs, have completely changed the perception of the Millburn team.
“I think what has happened this season, is we’ve gone from just another franchise in the league, to a team that people both inside and outside of the organization know can compete with anyone,” Sones said.
“I think we were a bit better prepared going into games [this season].”
The Millburn Magic is run by the New Jersey Soccer Group, a company which specializes in selling various soccer services. They are in the Eastern Division of the WPSL, which is widely considered the highest level of amateur women’s soccer in the country.
Players on the team include top high school seniors and college athletes and they play all their home games at Millburn H.S.
“I think it’s a good thing for the town to have high-level soccer right on the doorstep,” Sones said. “It’s a great opportunity for high school kids to play against top college athletes and for the college coaches to see them.”
