By Rob Gantt
Special to The HSSR
GOOSE CREEK - Stratford’s boys soccer team has a great deal of experience on the pitch for the 2024 campaign.
The Knights have 10 seniors and eight juniors, many of whom were on the previous two squads that shared region titles with Wando. They are taking dead aim at the outright region crown and more for this season.
“A lot of these guys play on high-level club teams,” said Stratford coach Jessie Stament, the Knights’ leader since 2016-17. “They’ve been in our program for a year or two. They know what we’re capable of. It’s just a matter of them being a tight-knit group and keeping team cohesion. If we play our game for 80 minutes, we’re a very good team.”
The returning crew is led by senior striker Jackson McNeil, the region’s player of the year last spring. Senior midfielders Vinny Teixeira and Nathan Arroyo and senior goalkeeper Enzo Mori are three more all-region selections coming back. Also, senior midfielder Terence Seals was the squad’s Golden Boot Award winner as a junior with 10 goals and three assists.
McNeil found the back of the net a team-high 11 times as a junior. Teixeira dished out a team-high eight assists as a junior.
“The biggest thing for our team is how we handle pressure and adversity if we are down or behind,” Stament said. “We have to have the belief we can come back and compete with anybody. We have to keep that mentality and control the things we can control.”
Two more returning starters, senior Rodney Miller and junior Harold Carranza, distributed six assists each in 2023. Junior defenders Tyler Stament and Chris Diaz, along with sophomore midfielder Silas Miller, have starting experience, too. Sophomore Brandon Martinez and Rodney Miller booted in four goals last season.
The Knights began the regular season Feb. 28 with a 1-0 win at Fort Dorchester, getting a goal from McNeil, and traveled to Lexington March 2, before hosting defending state champion Ashley Ridge March 5.
In the 1-0 win over Lexington, Silas Miller recorded the lone goal for the Knights.
“I feel really good about what our chances are (to compete for a region championship) and what our ceiling is,” Stament said. “We want to find our stride in these non-region games, find our rhythm and keep fine-tuning as we prepare for the region. We’re trying to tinker with things and see the best lineups and formations. Hopefully, we’ll get all that sorted out.”
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