Trumansburg boys soccer starts strong, Hodge reaches 200 wins

The Section IV fall season is well underway, and there have been quite a few teams around Tompkins County that have flown out of the gates. The Trumansburg boys soccer team certainly fits the criteria after winning its first five games, but one of those wins was a very significant one.

On September 5, The Blue Raiders defeated Dryden 5-0 for head coach Jason Hodge’s 200th career victory. He joins some elite company in the IAC boys soccer realm—including Dryden’s Laszlo Engel, Union Springs/Port Byron’s Jim Hodges, and Marathon’s Chip Stewart—to reach that milestone.

“It’s been a really nice thing to start the season off,” Hodge said. “It has been really special, and the guys on a team this year have really embraced it. We’ve celebrated, and now we’re ready to move on and celebrate some team things.”

There’s been plenty to celebrate for the Blue Raiders with the start they’ve gotten off to. One of their most challenging games was against Lansing in their home opener, where they came away with a 1-0 win. After losing to the Bobcats twice last year by a combined 9-1 scoreline, it’s clear that they’ve shown plenty of improvement. There’s one word that comes to mind for Hodge in their greatest area of growth.

“Confidence,” Hodge said. “Confidence on the ball, confidence knowing what they should be doing on the field, as opposed to just looking around and not knowing where to be. The confidence level that these guys have is second to none right now. That’s huge for us because we’ve always known we’ve had talent. It’s just playing with confidence and being able to showcase our talent.”

It also helps that most of the team returns, including all 11 sophomores from last season now a year older.

“It’s been huge,” Hodge said. “It really feels like this is just a rollover from last year. It just feels like the team has picked up right where we left off last year. Of course at the end of the year, it didn’t end how we wanted to, but we didn’t have to really start it at base zero. We started multiple weeks ahead of schedule this year, and that’s just a testament to the amount of juniors we have.”

From those first five victories, the biggest thing that jumps out is their near-impenetrable back line. The Blue Raiders only gave up one goal during that stretch. That was off a penalty kick, meaning they didn’t concede a goal from open play. Led by junior Jack Shank in goal and fellow juniors Jack Kise, Milan Welch, Wes Sturges and senior Will Foster ahead of him, the defense has been the backbone of the Blue Raiders’ blistering start.

“Our guys in the back are working hard,” Hodge said. “They want to be there. They want to impress their teammates. They’re the driving force right now because they’re showing how much work they’re putting in in the back, and that’s leading to the midfield putting in the work, which is leading to the strikers putting in the work.”

Moving up to the midfield, Trumansburg graduated multiple-time IAC All-Star Leo Schechter. Juniors ZaoHan Ferrari and Ezra Garrison have stepped up alongside juniors Teo Tielens and Duncan Gattine.

“Ezra and ZaoHan definitely had more confidence this year,” Hodge said. “They were giving us big minutes last year, but their confidence on the ball now has been great. Duncan inside has been phenomenal for us. He’s winning lots of balls in the middle, and he’s finding the back of the net. And then Teo on the outside winning those one-on-one battles has been really good for us.

The attack has been spearheaded by Gattine and Tielens, who have scored 13 and eight goals, respectively, as of September 14. Even though they are midfielders, their versatility—and the team as whole—has been paramount to a successful beginning.

“I don’t want the guys sticking to their positions,” Hodge said. “I want them in their positions, but I want those positions as placeholders. We know that we need two outside middies, we know we need two inside middies, and we need two strikers. But I want them to be comfortable playing all three of those positions. The six that we have up top right now starting, they do that, and they continuously move, they continuously talk, they’re continuously passing.”

While there’s still a long way to go, the Blue Raiders are well on their way to another successful campaign, one that they hope will result in some sort of championship—IAC, Section IV, or both—come November.

“We don’t want our guys living in social media and figuring out who’s beating who and how good this team is and how good they are, what players they have,” Hodge said. “We want them to really just focus on themselves and ourselves. We want to be able to control what we can control. And this team is definitely a special team, so I’m excited to see where we can take things.”