The Susquehannock boys' soccer team lost eight starters from a squad that reached the PIAA Class AA semifinals. The Warriors somehow found a way to regroup with their new players and go even further than last season, beating Thomas Jefferson 4-1 on Tuesday to advance to Saturday's 2 p.m. final against District 1 champion Pottsgrove at Hersheypark Stadium.
The Warriors also did better than the 2007 squad in the YAIAA tournament (finishing first) and the District 3 tournament (placing third). So how did they do it? How did they manage to recover from all those personnel losses and play at an even higher level?
Junior defender Jim Spearman, senior forward Joe Ferraracci and coach Ben Kettlewell all said it took some time for this group to start clicking on the field and feel completely comfortable with each other. Gaining confidence was also a gradual process for most of the group.
Spearman said that winning the YAIAA tournament was a huge spark for the squad.
"We hadn't won Counties in a long time and I think it just brought us together and gave us confidence that we can win and we can do this, even though we lost as many seniors as we did," Spearman said.
Ferraracci said the process wasn't complete at that point, and it took a loss to eventual district champion Palmyra in the semifinals to cause a change in approach at practice for the Warriors. With its back against the wall, Susquehannock "made huge adjustments," according to the senior.
"It wasn't that we would joke around, but we would take things a little lighter," Ferraracci said. "We knew that it was crunch time. You get to states and there are no easy teams."
Kettlewell said that this group started to seem like a team that could get this far right before the district tournament.
"I looked at them and I thought if we start coming together -- because we have a lot of individual talent -- and we start coming together as a team we can really play," Kettlewell said. "I saw it there, whether it happened or not is another thing."
Wait a minute, hasn't it already happened?
"We'll see," the ever-cautious Kettlewell answered with a sly grin. "We've still got one more game to go."
When asked if he likes his team's chances going into the title game, Ferraracci said: "We'll see. We have to take it one game at a time."
Yeah, but that's the only game left.
Ferraracci laughed, but insisted that it was too hard to tell at this point. He said the team didn't know much about Pottsgrove. The one guarantee he did make was Susquehannock matching its intensity from Tuesday's win.
"We're going to come out just as hard as we did this game," Ferraracci said. "I know I am and I know our team is going to follow."
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