As usual, Stowe teams are aiming high

“It’s an especially big jump coming in as a freshman, when you’re used to having a player maybe one year older than you on the team,” said Tyler Post, the girls’ varsity soccer coach and a Stowe High alumnus.

More than any sports season, fall is the time for players to really get to know each other. And it’s time for the newcomers to start honing their skills, and for coaches to recognize who needs what.

“As a coach, I think if you can get the kids to work hard for one another, you’ve got 80 percent of the job done,” said Brian Buzcek, boys’ varsity soccer coach. “They’ll defend harder, they’ll go for that 50-50 ball harder, and they’ll look out for one another.”

Fall teams have been doing some team-building exercises away from the field, too, welcoming the new players and getting the old gang back together. The boys’ soccer team went camping last week and talked about metaphorical goals, the seniors taking the freshmen under their wing. The girls’ team went for a hike up the Pinnacle for a “little mental health day.”

The early days of the fall sports season is also an important indicator of athletes’ strength, stamina and skills, a time to make sure so-and-so didn’t get too soft during the summer. The cross-country team uses its annual firewood stacking as both team- and community-building exercise and as a way to sneak in a heck of a core workout.

“It can make all the difference if they train during the summer,” said Becky McGovern, cross-country coach. “You can’t just come out and start running if your tendons and ligaments are tight.”

Stowe must be doing something right.

• The girls’ field hockey team has been in fully one-half of every state Division 3 championship Vermont has ever held for the sport.

• The boys’ varsity soccer team is seeking its fourth straight championship, and has won six of the last 10 state championships.

• The cross-country team has become a Division 3 powerhouse and the boys have been knocking on the door to New Englands.

And if interest in middle level sports is an indicator of future excellence — 60 boys and 35 girls playing middle school soccer, and 52 signed up to run cross-country — Stowe’s farm leagues are quite fertile.

“Participation is just huge,” said Joanna Graves, Stowe athletic director. “It’s incredible.”

Here’s what to look for this fall.

Cross-country

Scattered in a large group around a tree on the high school grounds, the cross-country team was doing situps this week before getting up as a pack and heading for the woods.

That’s where you’ll see harriers in their natural environment, skipping over roots and switchbacks, and doing it as a pack.

McGovern said that’s also the best way to score in a cross-country meet. The top five runners on each team contribute to the school’s final score, but the sixth and seventh runners can keep other teams from getting ahead on the leaderboard. There is strength in numbers.

“If you’re a single runner and you have three Stowe runners bearing down on you, that can be intimidating,” McGovern said.

The team is looking to build on last year’s success, when the boys won the Division 3 team title and the girls finished third. McGovern’s son, William, finished second in his division, seven seconds out of first. Among all Vermont high school runners, he finished ninth, earning his second trip to the New England championship. This year, the senior wants to bring his teammates along; they finished seventh overall last year, but only the top six head to the New Englands.

“That grade has wanted this every year they’ve been running,” McGovern said.

The season kicks off this weekend at the annual Essex Invitational, a big meet where the Stowe runners will quickly be able to gauge themselves against the best teams in the state; the top six teams are from the Burlington area. Other big meets this year include Amherst, Mass., a flat, fast course where the runners usually aim to set their personal bests; and a new one in Manchester, N.H., that will be mostly on pavement in a practically urban area, something the Vermont runners try to avoid but provides good practice nonetheless.

“We run about 1 percent on pavement,” McGovern said.

Girls’ soccer

More than half the girls’ varsity soccer players are sophomores and juniors — no longer freshmen, but not yet counting down the minutes until the end of high school.

The team has four freshmen, not counting first-year coach Tyler Post; he will lean on his two senior captains, Katelyn O’Toole and Rory Hauser, for team leadership. Six seniors graduated.

As the junior varsity coach the past several seasons, Post worked with many of the girls on their fundamentals.

“In JV, it’s about, ‘Can they make the pass?’” he said. “In varsity, it’s, ‘Can they read the field?’”

Post won’t have a deep bench, so the girls must play smarter, not harder. The team plans a solid mix of offense and defense, and will rely on the rudiments to adjust to opponents’ strengths.

Stowe was tested right out of the gates on Wednesday, with a home opener against Route 100 rival Peoples Academy of Morrisville. The Wolves are coming off their fourth straight Division 3 championship, with a 50-game winning streak in there. Wednesday’s game was played while this paper went to press.

“PA is always good, and should give us a good indication of where we are,” Post said. “Welcome to your first year of coaching; why don’t you go and take on the four-time state champs?”

Boys’ soccer

Buzcek has been the boys’ soccer coach for three years and they’ve won the state title each year, which means this year’s seniors were wide-eyed freshmen when he joined the team. He said the preseason action has been as encouraging as in the other years.

“Our preseason matches say we’re succeeding in the areas we want to,” he said. “We’re responding to our opponents well.”

Often, the reward for success is playing above your fighting weight, and Stowe is going to test itself against the best in the state. It starts with a corker, a season opener at home against Burlington, a 12th-seed last year that is expected to be one of the best big-school Division 1 teams this year. On Sept. 12, the boys travel to Hinesburg to play Champlain Valley Union, whose boys’ and girls’ teams are among the most-decorated soccer teams in recent Vermont history.

“You’ve gotta go to CVU,” Buzcek said. “You want to go to Soccer Central and see how you match up.”

The Stowe squad will rely on its tough midfield to keep opponents dizzy and frustrated, and Buzcek plans to unleash defensive star Chad Haggerty — a scoring machine on Stowe’s hockey and lacrosse teams, but who usually plays the backfield in soccer.

“I think I’m the only coach who uses Haggerty as a defender, because he can read the field so well,” he said.

Stowe has eight seniors on the team, but younger players are coming right up behind them. Sophomore Jonny Driscoll might be the third-best player on the team, and last year’s super-frosh goalie Mark Infante is bringing even more of his “holy cow, how’d he save that” skill and field generalship.

“Next year looks good, too,” Buzcek said. “It’s almost, like, when you get that younger crop in, you can do other things than what you already do.”

Field hockey

Last year was supposed to be a rebuilding season for the field hockey team, yet there was Stowe in the title game, as it’s been in fully 50 percent of the state Division 3 championships ever held in Vermont.

And here we are again, with coach Janet Godin being cautiously optimistic about the team’s upcoming season.

“It was a surprise to be in the finals last year, and it’s not going to be a piece of cake this year,” Godin said. “The skill level has definitely come up all over in the past year.”

One thing the team has this year that it didn’t last year is depth, enough players to form a bona-fide JV team for the first time in several years, a training ground for future varsity players. Sometimes, for the freshmen, that one year of JV can be important to future success.

One of the key players, in fact, was one of those freshmen last year. Now a 10th-grader, Carmen DeRienzo will be the goalie the Raiders will lean on all season. She’s a much smaller netminder than Sabrina Touchette, who graduated, but she’s already impressing.

“Dynamite comes in small packages, you know,” Godin said. “Carmen made some key saves last night.”

Godin said the Rice match Sept. 29 is a key one. She’s also looking forward to a state championship rematch against North Country, which eked out a 1-0 title victory in a cold, rainy, windy slurry.

No excuses, but the girls were a little flat for that game, Godin said, coming off just two days’ rest after an overtime semifinal win against Bellows Falls that she calls the highlight of the season.

“Those northern teams are very physical, and my girls play more finesse,” Godin said.