Bennett is back to coach Dryden girls

After five years away to watch her daughters play, Janine Bennett has returned to the Dryden girls soccer head coach position. It’s been a successful start to her 19th season as the team’s head coach with the Lions rolling to four straight victories after a season-opening defeat.

What Bennett has come back to is a smaller team. Athletic participation numbers are generally down across the board due to COVID-19. In Dryden’s case, the girls soccer team went from 21 players last season to 15 this fall. In fact, initially, there were only 13 players at the first practice.

“I was obviously worried about [the small roster] as anybody would be, but it looks like across the board, regionally, we’re having low numbers,” Bennett said. “Everybody’s kind of in the same boat. At first, it was a little alarming because I was used to having a JV as well and 20-some odd players. To come back to 13 players was like, ‘yikes, what’s going on?’ But some of it was [that] kids were away from school for a while, and they just stopped playing, and they get used to not playing.”

During her five years away from the soccer pitch, Bennett kept tabs on the program that she helped lead to six IAC Championships and a sectional crown.

“For me to transition back, the fortunate thing is, all of these kids were my students in middle school, so I knew all the kids,” Bennett said. “So, it wasn’t like I had a special group to rely on to make me understand what’s going on. Plus, of course, I know what’s going on in the program because I was here for 18 years prior to that. So, it was never far away.”

So far this season, younger players have been leading the way for Dryden. Junior Ally Deeley has a team-leading 10 goals. Nicole Morrow, the lone freshman on the team, and sophomore Laci Prignon follow her with five goals apiece. The prospect that all of these players will be returning while the team will lose just three seniors leads to a promising future for Dryden.

“I have a nice core coming through,” Bennett said. “I do have a really nice core with Nicole [Morrow] being just a ninth-grader. Emma [Lobdell] and McKenna Crocker do a really nice job for us in the middle of the field. Ally Deeley, who’s a junior, does a spectacular job for us. I think our middle of the field is looking pretty solid.”

Despite the smaller roster, Dryden competes in Section IV as a Class B school. To start the season this year, Dryden fell to Class B Chenango Valley, a 2019 Section IV semifinalist, by a score of 4-0. It was a helpful experience for Bennett to learn what her team needs to do to improve.

“Chenango Valley we knew was going to be a measuring stick for us of just a higher-level team,” she said. “We knew they’d be really tough and we knew they’re a powerhouse. For us, we went into the game saying this is going to expose us, and we wanted that. We wanted to expose us so that we were ready for what specifics we had to work on to be ready for our league. I thought it was a good result that we were 0-0 at halftime. I felt pretty good about that.”

One aspect of the game that Bennett is working on with the team is to be more selfish and to let shots fly more often. The players seem to be picking that up, as they are coming off a 14-0 win over Whitney Point in their most recent game.

“We do a nice job of connecting,” Bennett said. “They really are, to a fault, very unselfish. They find their teammates well. They connect really well with each other. They’re always looking for a path. But I’d like to see them be a little more greedy in front of the goal and say, ‘I want to score the goal.’ We’re just a little too pass-oriented right now, but we’re fantastic at passing. It’s one of those things that I’d have to train to keep your strength but build on it.”

As Bennett regains familiarity with the competition, she hopes that the team can make a run at another IAC Championship. The Lions were co-champions last season after winning the large school championship in 2019.

“We’re hoping to make postseason,” Bennett said. “We want to make a run for the league. The one thing I have to say, when I stepped away for five years, I wasn’t far from the program, but I was far enough away so that it wasn’t my program. I’m coming into a lot of the games saying that I don’t know the opponents inside-out like I did when I coached 18 years straight and knew everybody. There is a little bit of the unknown coming into each game that I haven’t had in the past, and that’s a little different for me.”

Dryden is just a third of the way through its 15-game schedule, so there are many teams left for Bennett to refamiliarize herself with. Next up for Dryden will be the 2-1 Union Springs/Port Byron Wolves on Sept. 15, a team that the Lions have already defeated 4-0 this season.