This article below is sponsored by the Central Bucks South Boys’ Soccer Booster Club.
The Central Bucks South boys soccer senior class: Friends, friendly rivals since middle school
(Photo provided courtesy of CB South soccer)
By Jarrad Saffren
They met in middle school, bonded over pickup games at the local club, and grew up to become the core of this year’s successful Central Bucks South squad.
There are 11 seniors on this year’s team. Six—center back Ian Betts, midfielder Connor Bethel, outside backs Chris Ross and Tim Radwanski, and keepers Matt Gorman and Billy Gorman—are senior leaders and key contributors who have been in the program for four years.
The other five—Lucas Pfender, Nick Collies, Nick Tobar, Michael Towle, and Erik Eisenschmid—have been in the program for three years.
“On most other teams they would be getting some playing time,” said CB South coach Don Brady.
Of the six leaders, four make up the core of South’s stout defense. Bethel is a defensive midfielder who, at 6’2, wins balls out of the air. Betts is a center back who wins balls on the ground and “starts our transition out of the back,” said Brady. Billy and Matt Gorman are cousins and goalkeepers who alternate starts.
South’s junior class gets more attention because it features scorers like Colin Green, Colin Fagan, and Giani Goss. But the seniors back them up, gain possessions, and start fast breaks. They also provide an indispensable example for the juniors to follow.
“They mentor the juniors with their commitment,” said Brady. “They are always here, you can always count on them. They’ve also made it cool to wear our uniform out in school. They’ve been standing for our program for three years.”
The bond among the seniors started well before they made the Titans’ jersey cool again. It started with a few middle school rivalry games and continued through high school.
Middle School
The rivalry between Unami Middle School and Tamanend Middle School goes back to the 1960s, when both Central Bucks schools opened. In the fall of 2010, the soccer rivalry introduced two pairs of future CB South stalwarts.
“I first met Ian (Betts) in 8th grade. I always heard about him like ‘Yeah he’s the really fast kid,’” said Bethel.
Betts and Bethel became teammates on Tamanend’s soccer team, but they weren’t that close off the field yet.
“We knew each other on a soccer basis,” Bethel said. “We sometimes hung out of school but mostly knew each other on the soccer field.”
The Gorman cousins have known each other since birth. And they were close long before middle school.
“We went to elementary, middle, and high school together,” said Billy. “We hung out outside school long before this soccer thing was a part of our relationship.”
But as teammates on Unami’s soccer team, the Gormans learned how to deal with the awkwardness of competing with a family member for time in goal.
“At the end of the day, we are still friends and we don’t want it to ruin our relationship,” Billy said. “We’ve never gotten close to a fight.”
They avoided fights by learning to root for and feed off of each other.
“Off the field, we get along well and push each other in training a lot. I’m happy when he plays well, and he’s happy when I play well,” said Billy. “He’d make a save, I’d want to make one better. We are always positive with each other.”
The Gormans remember Bethel and Betts, and vice versa. Tamanend won both years, including a 6-0 blowout in 2011, a game where the Gormans switched off multiple times.
The Ukrainian Club
The Ukrainian American Sport Center is a soccer, tennis, and golf club in North Wales, Pa. It’s also where Bethel, Betts, the Gormans, and others built their chemistry.
The four met in ninth grade, Betts and Bethel made varsity the next year, and the Gormans joined them as juniors. Early in high school, they began training at the club and shooting around on its soccer fields.
Other members also shot around, so the South group challenged whoever would play. “We usually won. We have a lot of chemistry,” said Betts. “We don’t go too hard. We don’t want to get hurt or injure anyone else.”
Their cohesion at the club gave the foursome the confidence to speak up on the high school team.
“Our freshman year was a get-to-know-you kind of year. Then sophomore year we started establishing places on our teams and were more confident on the field,” Betts said. “We gave other players constructive criticism. We didn’t show up captains or the upperclassmen. We just didn’t feel uncomfortable opening our mouths and saying what needs to be said. It was a quiet team.”
For Bethel, Betts, and the Gormans, leading at a young age cultivated the skills they needed to lead effectively as seniors. Past senior classes sometimes skipped team workouts at the club over the summer.
But not the 2015-16 class.
“That showed we want to create something special this year and are willing to put in the work,” said Bethel.
Senior Year
The Titans were close last year. They knew they had talent, but the rest of the team was too young.
“Junior year we were always saying, ‘We’d love to be good this year but knew we had a lot of underclassmen.’ We only had two contributing seniors. So we knew this was our year to make a push.”
Indeed. CB South jumped from 7-9-2 to 11-6-1, riding a 6-0-1 midseason stretch from sixth-place in the Suburban One League Continental Conference to second. The Titans were just 3-2 overall and 1-2 in the league after losing to Central Bucks East 5-0 on Sept. 18. Their two league losses, to CB East and North Penn, were by a combined score of 9-0.
Billy Gorman started in goal in the loss to East. After the game, he lit into himself and his despondent teammates. The Titans were sitting on benches in the locker room and no one was talking. Gorman stood up and paced down the center.
“I said, ‘Hey listen I didn’t have the game I like to. But we have an 18-game season for a reason. We’ve put too much hard work in to let one little speed bump break us apart. So we have to forget about this and believe in ourselves and that we are all great players,’” he said.
The Titans listened, and both classes, the offensive juniors and the defensive seniors, finally clicked together. In the next six games, CB South allowed just four goals and scored 16.
Betts said the chemistry between the two classes comes not just from high school soccer, but from club as well. Twelve South players are on the FC Warrington United 98/99 club team, including Gorman, Betts, Ross and Radwanski.
The seniors and juniors will try to cap their time together with a district playoff run. CB South was eighth in the district power rankings on Oct. 11. But the Titans dropped 12 spots in the final two weeks of the regular season because they lost two games. As the 20th seed, South faces a tough first round road game at 13th-seeded Harriton, which finished with an identical 11-6-1 record in the regular season.
“It’s a tough draw, but it’s nothing we should be concerned about,” said Matt Gorman. “Our team can play with anybody when we have our days. The days that we’ve lost we just haven’t been there. Our issue with losses is we lose our focus after giving up a goal. We keep our heads down and they are big losses. If we don’t give up, we’ll be in the game the entire game.”
Gorman also said the team can make states.
“We can go to the semifinals in districts,” he said. “I’m confident in our ability.”
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