Junior Varsity Boy's Soccer: Development and Winning Work Well for Middletown

By Ben Spector
Winning After MidKnight

 

Things have been looking up for the Middletown High School Knights Junior Varsity Boy’s Soccer team and after a spell against some of the tougher soccer that the Knights would see over the season now Middletown will get a chance to relax with some easier competition when they travel to Conservit Field at Mike Callas Stadium in Hagerstown, Maryland to take on the North Hagerstown High School Hubs.

Make no mistake this is not a gimme game for Middletown. If the Knights don’t play up to their standards they could easily blow it and end up having to look back on the game with a bunch of what-ifs.

Still after the first two games Middletown played in which they faced the Century High School Knights and the Eastern Tech High School Mavericks, the Knights will enjoy a chance to play a team like the Hubs and tap into their offense a little more and get some players off the bench to get them some much needed playing time.

During much of the first two games, Middletown has had to use just mainly starters as the Knights have played in two one goal games with both of those one goal games having been decided inside the final ten minutes of the contest. Tonight, against the Hubs, Middletown will hope to jump out to a lead early which will allow them to be able to develop their bench guys with some playing time.

At the Junior Varsity level, the goals for the team are split between developing the players for the next level and winning so it is not as cut and dry as at Varsity where the main goal is to win and then win some more.

Depending on the organizational style of the teams involved some programs prefer to have Junior Varsity teams that focus strictly on development while others prefer to spread the wealth between a focus on winning and a focus on making the players better so that they can succeed at Varsity.

Middletown falls in the latter of this category as although the Knights have an interest in developing players (and have done a fantastic job of it as evidenced by the last couple Varsity teams), Middletown also has a strong focus on winning games as has been seen in how they have approached the first two contests of the season with Middletown playing much more aggressive as the game went on in order to get a result.

Both games have come down to the wire and both games have seen Middletown head coach Paul Stalnaker adopt a more aggressive philosophy late in the game with the midfielders adopting more of a central forward role as the clock winds down in the match. All of this has led to goals at the end of the game, as both ties have been broken once Stalnaker adopted this strategy even if one did fall to the opposition giving them a late win.

The ability to adopt and improvise tactics throughout the game is a positive sign for Middletown as it shows that they are an agile team that can adapt to the situations that they are in and change based on the flow of the game.

Middletown will most likely not have to do a lot of changing against the North Hagerstown Hubs as they are the likely favorites against a Hubs team that has only played in one game so far, a 3-1 loss against the Tuscarora High School Titans.

The Knights will look not only to beat the Hubs but to open up a wide margin so that Middletown can get some of the bench players in their to get some game experience, something that is worth gold at this level.

The big win and the bench players getting large playing time would only confirm that on this team, development and winning go hand in hand.