By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
NEWARK VALLEY — Newark Valley girls soccer soccer coach Chuck Schneider says he has seen it all in his 24 years of coaching. This year, the school’s dwindling enrollment will move the Cardinals into the IAC South Small School division.
“When I first started, we were around 383,” he said. “We're already down to 242 over the last 24 years, so a little bit smaller. It's harder, but we've been able to keep the numbers and looking forward to being able to have another season.
“We're looking at about 14 on the team this year. Maybe a couple more will come out depending on how other sports pan out.”
The Cardinals’ solid numbers are bolstered by light graduation losses
“We have a lot of experience this year,” Schneider said. “We only lost two graduates from last year's team, so I'm returning nine starters. We have a lot of experience coming back, so that's going to be nice to have that to work with.”
That also converts to strong leadership on the roster.
“We have all our captains back from last year, so that leadership was strong last year, and I'm expecting it to be strong again this year,” he said. “We're very fortunate to have all our captains back.”
During the summer NV would hold pick-up games on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then we run a weight training program here that our weight trainer does an amazing job with that all our athletes like,” Schneider said.
Preseason practices will cover several aspects of the game, but with an experienced roster, the players should adjust quickly.
“This year, we're going to be focusing on our touches, passing, a little bit of since we have experienced tactical stuff, our strategies, what we want to do, and how we want to approach field attack, the field attack and other teams,” Schneider said.
The Cardinals’ new division will include Tioga, Newfield, Odessa-Montour and Watkins Glen. NV returns all four IAC all-stars while Tioga brings back five, Newfield three and O-M one.
“It's all new,” said the coach. “First time ever that I don't have Notre Dame on the schedule. It's different to be playing the smaller schools now, but we are smaller now, so it makes sense.”
ND will stay in the South Large School division. Schneider said NV will miss those clashes with the Crusaders.
“Oh, we will,” he remarked. “Those were always close games. We always were rivals, and some years we would sweep them. Some years they swept us, but it was always close games between us. We never really blew each other out.”
NV opens the season at home next Wednesday against Southern Cayuga.
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PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
