by Meghan McCarthy for USLSoccer.com

Friday, April 16, 2009

League Roundup
United Soccer Leagues Super Y-League will start to see more action this weekend as a handful of boy’s teams from the Mid Atlantic Division are starting their respective seasons. Initially, on Saturday, March 21, the 11th USL Super Y-League season got underway with TSF Academy downing the New Jersey Junior Stallions, 1-0.

The league’s sixth week of action got underway Wednesday night as, the U15 boys of Ironbound and Brooklyn played a competitive game with Ironbound coming out on top 2-1. The goals were scored by Jonathan Moraes and Drew Rosenberg from Ironbound and William Miller scored the lone goal for Brooklyn.

Weekend Preview
On Friday April 17, the Stallions U16 boys and Quickstrike FC will square off beginning at 7 PM at Mt. Airy Sports Complex. The Stallions are 0-1, losing last month to TSF Academy, but are looking for their first win of 2009 against Quickstrike, who will be playing their first game of the season.

Super Y-League action continues Saturday, April 18 with afternoon and evening matches between the South Jersey Barons U16 boys playing host to the Westchester Flames. Game time is noon at Winslow High School. Both teams met last season resulting in a scoreless match and this year both teams are playing their first game of the season.

Saturday’s soccer continues with Ironbound’s U14 boys visiting the Stallions for a 1 PM kickoff at Passaic County Tech High School. These two age groups will be playing their first game of the season, which should be a great match since both teams want to start out strong with a win.

TSF Academy’s U13 boys will also see some playing time on Saturday when they travel to the Stallions home field in Passaic County for a 6:45 PM start.

“We have a very solid and good team this year,” said Stallions U13 Head Coach, Julio Cesar Letari. “The level at this age is very competitive and these boys give it their best. This season, there are about three or four extremely good teams: Ironbound SC, PDA, and Match Fit Chelsea Academy who play intense, so it will be a great match up when we do play these teams.”

“We have three players that the team looks up to – Zach Knudson, Bryan Calixto, and Christopher Lema,” added Letari. “These three individuals are very solid and have had experience playing overseas. Overall, the whole team works very well together, which will definitely help us this season.”

After facing TSF this weekend, the Stallions have a week off before facing the Brooklyn Knights on Sunday, April 26 and aforementioned Ironbound SC on Wednesday, April 29.

“Right now we have a player out with a broken arm and one with a concussion and last September, when I first took over this team, there were also a lot of injuries,” said Letari. “This weekend we will again be without our full roster, however, we still have a strong squad that is ready to play. Hopefully all these injuries are behind us and we will be a better side now that it is all behind us.”

“We are still very competitive,” concluded Letari. “I have told the boys we will not win every time, but just to give it the best effort they can and we will succeed. These boys are skillful and we hope to be at the top of the standings in the end.”

The Stallions wraps up their busy weekend on Sunday, April 19 with their U14 and U16 boys playing Super Y-League expansion side, the Perugia Grifos. New Jersey will travel to Pennsylvania to face Perugia at BASD Stadium with kickoff times of 1PM for the U14 boys and 3:15 PM for the U16 boys.