Mainland United soccer team on its way to West Virginia to compete for regional championship

By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Publisher The players on the Mainland United U-15 boys soccer team — made up mostly of freshmen and a few sophomores — probably don’t know who John Denver is, but the coaching staff might throw on a little “Country Roads” as the boys make their way to Barboursville, W.Va., this week for the Region 1 Finals. West Virginia might not be a place many thought United belongs, given that it is not an all-star team that draws in athletes from many different towns, like many of the teams that competed in the New Jersey Youth Soccer National Championship Series state title tournament. Most of the boys on United go to Mainland High School, and a lot of them will be vying for varsity time this fall as sophomores. United coach Sam Watt said having a group of boys mostly from the same school makes his team unique, and that bond they have developed from playing on the same team together for years may have provided the edge United needed to get past a bunch of all-star teams in the state tournament. United took down four straight elite soccer academies, beating Players Development Academy Rooney, of Somerset, 2-1 in the finals to advance to the regionals, which begin on June 25. Watt said there will be 16 state champions competing at the regionals in West Virginia. Mainland United U-15 soccer players go through possession drills during a recent practice. The team is heading to West Virginia this week to compete in the regional tournament. (Glory Days Magazine photos/Dave O’Sullivan) “To say we went into (states) as an underdog would probably be a little bit of an understatement, being a local club team, but the boys played very well. We had to win four games, and each one was against an academy of some sort where each player pays between $2,500 and $3,000 per year to play. The team that we played in the finals, out of Somerset, they are pulling players from New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York. All of our kids come from within a few square miles of Mainland,” coach Watt said. “For people who aren’t familiar with soccer, it would be like a Little League baseball team, playing under rules of where you can come from, winning the Cal Ripken states where it is AAU. We have a couple players who round out our roster from Margate, Ventnor, Brigantine and Little Egg Harbor.” “It was amazing, because last year we lost in the finals. It was amazing that we won this time,” said Watt’s son, also named Sam, who is a freshman at Mainland Regional. “I wasn’t that surprised, but I was happy because I knew we had been working hard and that eventually this would come our way. Now we just have to keep working hard into regionals, and if we win that we’ll be on to nationals.” Coach Watt said it didn’t come as a huge surprise that his “club” team took down some high powered academies. He credits team chemistry and supportive parents to creating a culture of success that has continued to build over the last seven years. “I was pleasantly surprised, but not shocked. Every year we have stayed together and gotten better every year. This is a special group of kids. The core of the team has been playing together since they were 8 years old, two seasons per year. So a lot of them have been together for 14 or 15 seasons and played close to 200 games together. It’s a tight group of kids and there are no egos. We don’t have a superstar. Everyone comes out and works hard, and pushes each other to make themselves better. It’s an easy team to coach,” Watt said. “We had one season when they were younger when we went 1-8-1, and it would have been easy for a lot of these kids to look to go in a different direction, to go to an academy, but everyone stayed together and we made a bigger commitment from that point on. Everything has been about getting them better and the next new challenge. We want to play teams that are bigger, stronger and faster and not be complacent.” They players say they are ready for the competition they will face in West Virginia. “It’s going to be a great experience for us. I’ve been on the team for a long time now and it’s good to finally get to regionals, play some good teams, and hopefully come out with some wins,” said Kyle Gallagher. “It’s going to be a great experience. The play is going to be fast and it will be good competition for us. I think we are going to bring the intensity,” said Jimmy Kryjer, also a freshman at Mainland. “We don’t quit. We come out here and push each other in every single practice, and that showed (in the state final). We were down 1-0 with five minutes left and came back to score two goals.” Dan Adams said he and his teammates are best friends off the field, which helps foster team chemistry on the field. “We are like a family and we all come together. We play together and work hard,” Adams said. “We all know each other well, so we can play as a team. We’re all best friends.” “It started when we were young, and we’ve been playing together for most of our lives,” said Keegan Ford. “Like Dan said, we are like a family. We hang out together, we fund raise together for stuff we want to do. We work hard during practices and give it all we have.” Coach Watt said the regionals will be set up in World Cup fashion, with four groups of four teams playing round-robin, with the four group winners advancing to the semifinal round. “The regions are similar to the World Cup, where you are placed in four groups. Our short-term goal is to make it out of group play and into the semifinals and be one of four teams left playing,” Watt said. “All the teams we will be playing will be very good, but we are good enough to compete with anyone. They work hard for everything they get.” Watt said his players may not be a favorite to win the regionals, but they certainly aren’t lacking for confidence after winning the state title. “We won the states — and I’m not going to say we were the best team in New Jersey — but since winning the states they are practicing and playing like they are the best team in New Jersey. Every practice since then the team has gotten better, so that’s fun to be around and fun to watch,” Watt said. “We have things going on off the field that academies could never have. We have that tight bond that is really missing in a lot of your higher level youth sports.” Even if Mainland United doesn’t advance to the national tournament, an experience like this for boys headed into their sophomore year of high school will be invaluable once they hit the high school pitch in mid-August. Said Kryjer, “At the high school level, the play is very fast. You have kids who are older than you, stronger, faster, so this play is going to be good for us because it’s going to increase our pace.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays [adsense]