BW boys succer looks to build on successful 2011 campaign

By GARY HENERY

News Man­ag­ing Editor

The 2011 Golden Eagles set the bar high for the Big Wal­nut boys soc­cer program.

Brett Weiss, who took over the pro­gram after long-time coach Char­lie Brod­head stepped down after last season’s opener, led the Golden Eagles to their first-ever unde­feated reg­u­lar sea­son (12–0-4) in school his­tory while cap­tur­ing the Ohio Cap­i­tal Con­fer­ence Cap­i­tal Divi­sion crown with a 6–0-1 mark, one game bet­ter than run­nerup rival New Albany (5–1-1).

The only Cen­tral Dis­trict team to be ranked in the top ten, Big Wal­nut was ranked third in the final Ohio Scholas­tic Soc­cer Coaches Asso­ci­a­tion Divi­sion II poll with its 14–1-4 record behind Day­ton Car­roll (16–0-0) and Rich­field Revere (12–0-4) and was seeded No. 1 in the Divi­sion II Cen­tral Dis­trict Tour­na­ment, but only to see its sea­son end in a con­tro­ver­sial 2–1 double-overtime loss to St. Fran­cis DeSales in the title game played at West­er­ville Cen­tral High School.

Big Wal­nut returns seven let­ter­men from last sea­son, led by three-year vet­er­ans in senior for­ward Austin Foor and senior mid­fielder Shane Face­myer who will serve as team cap­tains this sea­son. Join­ing Foor and Face­myer are junior two-year let­ter win­ners in junior defense­man Bra­dyn Drons­field and junior for­ward Nathan Mick­ley. Also back are junior defense­men Dominic Zumpone and Max Den­ton along with junior mid­fielder Adam Car­ifa who earned their first var­sity let­ter last season.

Foor, a Sec­ond Team All-OCC selec­tion, returns after shar­ing last season’s Offen­sive Player of the Year Award. Drons­field was the recip­i­ent of the Coaches Award. Weiss was tapped the OCC Cap­i­tal Divi­sion Coach of the Year as well as the All-District Divi­sion II Coach of the Year.

The Golden Eagles grad­u­ated eight let­ter­win­ners off last season’s squad. Lost were four-year vet­er­ans Zach Mason and Ryan Schmidt and three-year let­ter­men Josh Annis and Dixon Duck­wall along with two-year let­ter­men Patrick Sewalk, Jared Watkins, Corey Gib­son and Lukas Swysgood.

Swys­good (Golden Eagle Award), Gib­son (Offen­sive Player of the Year), Mason (Defen­sive Player of the Year), Duck­wall (Most Improved Player) and Annis (Most Improved Player) con­cluded their Big Wal­nut careers by receiv­ing post­sea­son awards at the annual awards banquet.

Post­sea­son recog­ni­tion saw Mason named to the Divi­sion II First Team Ohio Scholas­tic Soc­cer Coaches Asso­ci­a­tion and All-Central Dis­trict, Schmidt to the All-District First Team and Face­myer to the All-District Sec­ond Team.

Mason, Schmidt and Face­myer were First Team All-OCC selec­tions while Gib­son and Swys­good were named to the Sec­ond Team, Duck­wall to the Spe­cial Men­tion unit and Annis to the Hon­or­able Men­tion squad.

Weiss will look to 11 new­com­ers to fill the holes left by grad­u­a­tion, includ­ing two seniors in Ethan Greene (mid­fielder) and Alex Braven­der (goal­keeper); three juniors in Nick Her­bert (mid­fielder), Cameron Evans (defense­man) and Luke Hart­ings (mid­fielder); and six sopho­mores in Noah Gib­son (defense­man), Bobby Bogantz (mid­fielder), Tyler Sholl (goal­keeper), Ian Kirsch (mid­fielder), Kyle Wurm (defense­man) and Tyler Led­bet­ter (midfielder).

Weiss expects a com­pet­i­tive sea­son from his Golden Eagles.

“We expect to be fit and com­pet­i­tive,” he said in a pre­sea­son inter­view. “We have a group of guys who are com­mit­ted to becom­ing a team and func­tion­ing highly as a team. The biggest key to our suc­cess will be stay­ing healthy through­out the entire season.”

Big Wal­nut opened its 2012 sea­son Tues­day at Jonathan Alder. The Golden Eagles will make their home debut on Sat­ur­day at 11:45 a.m. with vis­it­ing Tri Val­ley before open­ing their OCC slate next Tues­day (Aug. 28) with rival Olen­tangy at 7:15 p.m.

Weiss will be assisted on the side­lines this sea­son by Archie Foor and Milan Orr. Join­ing Foor and Orr are goalie coach Rob­bie Williamson and junior var­sity coach Jason McLead.

Posted by Gary Henery on Aug 22 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.