NHS Fall Sports Preview

The soccer, football, and cross country teams are all looking forward to next year’s fall sports season. The preparation for next season starts now. Coaches and players are practicing, getting in topform for next school year’s first sports season.

The soccer team is currently taking part in an 8v8 soccer tournament taking place at Montclair State University. The head coach of the boys varsity soccer team, Coach Tolve, said that, “being involved in the Montclair State league and the Harrison soccer tournament is going to give the team an opportunity to play some great competition from around the state which will help prepare us for the strong schedule we have set for the regular season.”

Along with that, the soccer team will start captain's practice once or twice a week and the preseason which will begin on August 15th and run until the start of the season. “I am confident in this team's abilities and am excited about the upcoming season. We lost a good amount of seniors who contributed a lot to the team, but the incoming juniors and seniors are skillful players who gained a lot of experience last season."

Some key contributors from last season who are returning are JP Maruri, Dean Polewka, Nick Kirby, Charlie Contini, Joe Cook, and Stalin Rivera. "We moved up a conference from last year so the competition will be strong, but I know as a team we will be prepared and have a great season,"  Tolve said. 

Football players have started to practice after school and the players have been going to morning speed and agility training at Parisi, a speed school. Notable rising senior football players including Aidan Ozdemier, Christopher Kruse, Matthew Jaworski, Daniel Jennings, and Justin Lucia look to lead Nutley to dominate their opposition. 

Gerald Ryan, head coach of the cross country team, will begin having captain's practice starting on June 23rd. The team will meet three to four times per week and get their runs in. The goal of the summer is to build an endurance base and build up their weekly mileage. “We have a solid core coming back on the boy's side. They all broke 20 minutes last year,” Coach Ryan said. “On the girl's side, we were hit hard by graduation. The only returners from the top seven are Gianna Marinaro and Morgan Defluri.”