NORTH PENN BOYS’ SOCCER PREVIEW
Head coach: Chris DePeppe – 2nd season head coach, 10th overall at NP
Assistant coach: Paul Duddy
Last year’s record: 11-3 overall
Conference champions for 5th straight year
District 1 #6 seed – lost to Neshaminy in semifinals (without Josh Jones)
Notable losses: Josh Jones – 4-year starter – playing at Univ of Louisville – first team all SOL
Sawyer Meade GK
Roman Ilovski first team SOL
Dominik Gedek – forward – now playing in Poland for professional club’s reserve team
Key returners:
The team’s 3 senior captains:
Ryan Mindick – center back and 2nd team SOL all-conference
Hunter Stites – mid/defender and should have been all Conference
Alex Stewart – center mid – honorable mention last season – will be a force in the middle of the pitch
Also,
Junior Nate Kim – defender 2020 SOL all-conference Honorable mention
Senior forward Jovani Gonzalez – breakout year expected
Senior defender Achilles Triantophylis
Senior goalkeeper Gabe Kemp
Others to watch: Expecting some new players to step up – seniors Jimmy Perrine, Riley Baker, Ben Barbosa and juniors Kyle McKeever, Matt Willis, Hayden Wagner
Strengths: We will be strong defensively – goalkeeper should be fine.
Question mark: We are really starting a new era since we’ll be without Carter Houlihan or Josh Jones for the first time in 5 years.
Outlook: “Our schedule is very tough – conference rivals are strong (Souderton, Pennridge, CB South and East) and we face Council Rock North, Pennsbury and Neshaminy in other SOL games…and our elective games include LaSalle – so no easy games. We are playing in a brand new stadium with a turf field so we are excited about finally having a proper size pitch and a good surface and we hope to establish home field dominance and post some early shutouts. The goal is to win the conference again and put ourselves in a good position to get back to a district final…but we have some work to do!”
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