Lansing boys leaning on experienced roster

Lansing boys soccer has been a powerhouse in Section IV for years, reaching the last three state championships and winning two of them. The Bobcats started this season on the right foot, defeating Marathon with a dominant 10-3 performance Sept. 1. With that victory in the books, the team traveled to Section II and took part in five scrimmages, going 2-0-3 against bigger schools.

After a shortened season earlier this year in the spring, head coach Benji Parkes is excited to be back on the sidelines with his team for a full slate of games.

“It was great to get out there and finally play and be able to enjoy a full season,” Parkes said. “I think we’re all looking forward to it. We had the spring season, but it’s tough getting back out there. We were only seven practice days in and trying to put a quality product on the field. I think it will take some time. But to get out of there and end game one with a win is what we’re looking for.”

Parkes has 18 players to work with this season, which is a few players shy of the numbers from the previous two seasons. The roster consists of nine juniors and nine seniors but is still lacking some experience, according to Parkes.

“The experience is a bit different just because nobody’s really played a true fall season at the varsity level, even the seniors,” Parkes said. “We have a couple of guys that got moved up at the end of their sophomore year, but the seniors missed their junior year besides last spring. So, the experience, it’s there, but at the same time, this is kind of the first true varsity action where games mean a little more for a lot of them. Of course, as we get into the postseason, a lot of them will be playing for their first sectional title.”

Even without that varsity experience, having a roster entirely made up of upperclassmen makes a few things easier for Parkes and the coaching staff.

“I think it’ll help us in the long run,” he said. “The developing of the team chemistry will hopefully come a little faster because we’re that much more experienced and older. But I think a lot of these schools are going into the season with kind of the same mentality that everybody’s pretty new at this. We’re just going to see which team can react first.”

Lansing was trailing 2-0 in the first five minutes of the season-opener against Marathon. Parkes leaned on the team’s experience to ensure that they would not panic and instead use all 80 minutes in the game. Lansing went on to score eight consecutive goals after Marathon took a 3-2 lead.

Offseason work was important to help ready the team for the season, especially considering there were only seven practices before the first game. The comeback victory proved the Bobcats’ conditioning is where it needs to be.

“We came in in pretty good shape,” Parkes said. “That was not a surprise. It always makes life a little easier on us as a coaching staff because we don’t have to spend as much time on conditioning and getting them in shape and ready to roll. We can jump more into tactics and dive a little deeper into what we want to try to accomplish in the first couple of weeks as we settle into the flow of a season.”

Participating in five scrimmages against out-of-section competition helps players get into that flow. It’s a tradition that started when Parkes was a senior under coach Adam Heck in 2011 and has continued with Parkes at the helm.

“It’s a good mix of teams that we’ll probably never see in our season,” Parkes said. “It’s just a chance for us to come up and figure out a few things, figure out where guys are going to play against competition we don’t know. We’re not familiar with them, so we just have some fun with it. It’s time to get away before school starts and really get a chance to just enjoy being with our teammates for a couple of days.”

There are unknowns all over the Section IV landscape due to the shortened season that took place earlier this year. Through that, Parkes’ goals for the team are simple.

“We want to play in as many big games as we can,” Parkes said. “We start with just trying to survive the 15 games that are scheduled in front of us. Then, we’ll take advantage of any extra game we get to play, whether that’s the IAC championship game in mid-October, or if we’re fortunate enough to make it through sectionals and get to play on Halloween weekend in Oneonta. We’ll just see where the tide takes us.”

Following a game against the defending IAC Champion Dryden Lions that took place after publication, the tide will take the Bobcats to Whitney Point on Sept. 14. With many players experiencing both their first and final full varsity season, this year is a meaningful one for Lansing.