Girls Varsity soccer ends season

The Varsity Girls soccer team finished their season on October 25th with a  loss against Somerville to bring their season record to 6 wins and 14 losses. Freshman Isa Harrington and Junior Brooke Yero were two of the many outstanding players of the season. 

Harrington has been playing soccer since the age of 3. The excitement soccer brings to her never fails to increase her energy levels, and improves her ability to play on the field.

Harrington said that she has a remarkable ability to adapt  to any position on the field, except for the goalie position. 

When  Harrington  gets on the field, mentally, she says that it helps her to envision different scenarios that the team might encounter during the game, and she strategizes  how to effectively handle the situations. However, physically she makes sure she is properly warmed up to prevent muscle strains, and if needed she uses her inhaler to help during very intense moments on the field.

Harrington  says that she “will always remember when her team discovered that they had been selected for the Second Team All Conference. The recognition of their dedication filled their team with joy, and a feeling of accomplishment.”

 Playing soccer can be very stressful, with the challenges that players face. For Harrington, it was a fractured ankle that posed a significant challenge. She had to work exceptionally hard to catch up with her teammates and was very determined to overcome this obstacle, and dedicated extra time before and after practice to improve her skills.

 Harrington spent her spare time striving to improve her abilities. Through lots of hard work, she managed to  grow and reclaim her place on the field. 

Yero is the captain of the Varsity team, and having this role comes with great responsibility. Before big games, she likes to motivate her team by giving them a speech during their huddle which they call their “dance circle”. The huddle allows the team to get their nerves out before the game, and to have a little fun before it's time to get to work. 

Yero said, “The speech just gets everyone fired up and ready to go out and perform.”  As a captain, it’s Yero’s responsibility to lead the team in all aspects of the game. A major part of leading is being very vocal on the field and setting a tone from the very first whistle. 

Yero  said she tries hard to “direct players all throughout the game, whether it's a simple ‘man on’ or helping them with positioning, make sure to always go hard on tackles, and always protect my teammates.” Yero  has tons of memorable moments because she has played soccer throughout her entire life, but from her time on the team nothing was better than Nutley beating Belleville during this past season.

The  Belleville-Nutley rivalry has been going on for quite a while, and Yero said “it truly was an amazing, high-scoring game.” Despite the memories, there are also sometimes some disagreements throughout the team. Yero  said that “the first step I take in dealing with the conflicts throughout the team is discussing the issue with the two other captains, Seniors Bryanna Martins and Elizabeth Desantis.”

Yero knows that the whole soccer team sees each other all the time, and if there are any issues they should squash them, because they don’t want any lingering problems. Although the season ended, Yero said that she is proud of every single player; although it might have not been the season they were striving for, she’s happy that every single girl on the team gave it their all. Not just towards the end but from the beginning of captains practices over the summer, all the way to the last game in October.  Yero said “Next season we’re looking for a winning record and to continue to develop both on and off the field.”

Coach Mike Dipiano is the varsity soccer  team’s head coach. When looking for players for the varsity team, DiPiano said, “we are looking for girls who are skilled players, that work hard, and want to get better and represent our school and community with toughness and class.” To get the girls to have stronger bonds, Dipiano makes sure that he picks the correct captains and that they do a great job making the team a family.

The girls have dinners and various team bonding activities, and Dipiano said that this “really makes a difference in attaining team chemistry. Being a coach comes with great memories.¨ Other than memories, the coach has also had a lot of success throughout his years. 

There is overall a lot DiPiano would like to accomplish but he feels his biggest success is becoming a coach at Nutley. He said, “we are still looking to win the first sectional championship in school history and that's the main goal, but my best success story is that, since I have become the coach here at Nutley, we have sent over 23 girls to play soccer in college!”

 Obviously, not just anyone is able to play soccer in college. To achieve this, the girls are required to work very hard  no matter how early in the season it is. Dipiano says “The best players in the world work on the most basic soccer skills every single day…we try to implement that into practice every single day.” 

DiPiano said that the girls get along great. Although when there are small arguments, or disagreements, it's best to let it go because in order to work well together the whole season, there should be no beef between anyone. He said, “so we have to have a short memory, fix our mistakes, and get back at it the next game.”