By Paul Silverfarb
With a talented team full of varsity experience, the Brunswick School soccer team has its eyes set on another solid regular season and a possible postseason berth.
“This year we only had room for two new players on the squad and the rest are all returning,” said Danny Simpson, head coach of the Brunswick soccer team. “From that sense we had a lot of experience and know what to expect and what’s expected of them. They might not know the opposition that we are going to play, but we don’t know that either because we don’t know if COVID has changed a lot of international students from coming and playing in these schools. We know we are going to play some very good teams with some very good traditions, so we have to prepare our boys to be the best they can be.”
This season’s roster will be full of experience, as Brunswick has 12 returning seniors leading the way and only two newcomers to the varsity program.
“We had a very tight squad last from last year,” Simpson said. “We had some big numbers last year and were able to experiment with that. We had a lot of good looks at players and were able to develop them.”
This year’s team will be led by senior captains John Dunn and Nico Montoni. Montoni will be pacing the team at the attack, while Dunn will be leading the way at defense. Both standouts are four-year varsity players.
“They have been here for as long as I have and know what to expect with the leadership and what we are looking for,” Simpson said. “They both have aspirations of playing soccer in college. They are great players for the boys to look up to. It’s great having a captain throughout the field. I think they are going to be great captains. They are low key kids and that might be what this group of kids needs, rather than loud, vocal leader on the field.”
Between the pipes this year will be senior James Walker and freshman Christian Rinaldi, who will put some pressure on Walker to see some starting time at some point this season. According to Simpson, Walker has looked solid throughout the preseason.
“This is a perfect situation because we have the senior that’s looking like the starter at the moment and a freshman backing him up and learning his craft off of James,” the head coach said.
Dunn will be joined with fellow senior Frankie Grether and junior Omeed Pooya at center back. Brunswick School will also rotate players out wide, with seniors Kevin Miller and Kaden Saad, junior Douglas Otton, and freshman Johnny Saunders pacing the team.
“We are looking at three center backs and we are changing up the system a little bit,” Simpson said. “We’re going to try a 3-5-2, mainly because of the personnel. We have three great center backs and the personnel dictates the system. We are going to try and create more goal scoring chances if we can get more players in the final third to give us a great opportunity.”
Brunswick’s experience will certainly show in the forward position this year, as the majority of athletes will be seniors. Montoni, along with fellow senior Gavin Foster will be up top. Will Donovan, Patrick Keller, and Zack Boehly are all seniors that will be looked up to also find the back of the net. Junior Malik Samms will also be called upon to play some key minutes for the Bruins.
Senior Jeff Ruiz, Christian and freshman Will Higgs will see some time in the midfield. Juniors Collin Eschricht and Ryan Kulsakdinum will also battle in the midfield, with fellow junior Kaden Saad and senior Kevin Miller pitching in there as well.
“We got a lot of players that we would like to rotate out there knowing they are going to work hard and create chances for each other,” Simpson said. “I would like to feel confident that we have goals in this squad. I think that over the years we have relied on one or two or three players. I like to think that we can share the wealth this year.”
Heading into this season, Simpson believes that while his team has matured a bunch from last year, as well as the coaches. This year Simpson and the coaching staff have dialed back a little bit of the fitness, so that way they can focus on improving the game play of the Bruins on the pitch.
“We did a fitness test, their scores were extremely high so that was great to see, especially since we are working on the game play of the team,” Simpson said. During the preseason we played back-to-back games against two great teams and played well. It showed us that we are game ready. This year we have a little bit more of a squad of footballers, so they understand the importance of making sure they came in game ready. We have been really pleased with their fitness this year, so that way we can focus on their football.
“If we can come out preseason with the confidence that we can put teams under pressure and create chances and we have the players capable of finishing them, that means that we can really give the league a good go,” added Simpson.
One of the keys for Brunswick this season, according to Simpson, is that the sporting world in Connecticut is starting to feel like normal again. There is a full slate of preseason and regular season games and as of press time there is a postseason tournament to look forward to.
“The boys really want to feel normal again, so this has been great so far,” Simpson said. “Hopefully we continue this way. The mystery is that no one will know how much the past year has affected these young kids mentally. I think the sooner we get last year out of our heads, the better. So, it’s a real positive for them to go out now, exert energy, run around, sweat a little bit, and trying to do their best knowing that they are representing their school. It’s going to be huge for them.”
Although the Bruins only played five games during the regular season last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Simpson said that he learned a bunch from his team, but also learned a lot about the passion that Brunswick School has when it comes to athletics.
“I know a lot of private schools had one or two games and we ended up with five,” Simpson said. “When teams were in cohorts, we were in normal training sessions. Brunswick School really puts the kid’s health and safety as a priority mixed that in with making sure their athletes could get the most they could of last year. We did everything in masks, condensed the training sessions so there wasn’t so much running. There was a lot of playing and a lot of enjoyment. The big thing for me was seeing how much the school cares about sports and how they see that as a part of a child’s growth.”
Simpson said that he’s hoping his squad can get over the hump this season. For the past few seasons, Brunswick’s play from the beginning of the season until homecoming has put them in contention for a postseason berth. However, they have been unable to reach the postseason, missing out by only a game or two. This year he wants that to change.
“We’ve talked to the boys about this and are trying to figure out what we need to do to get to that spot again and go beyond it,” Simpson said. “Our first five games are going to be very tough and there’s a middle stretch of the season where the competition is a lot like us. The final six games are against teams pushing for playoff spots in their leagues. This year I would like to be in the same spot as we were for the past few years, but this time I want us to capitalize on it and get to the playoffs. This team can certainly do it.”
