Men’s soccer enters make-or-break season

By David Thackham
Special to The Johnsonian

Coach admits ‘rebuilding year’ despite equal playing field in Big South conference

Soccer coach Richard Posipanko refuses to be worried.

While some might be worrying about the Eagles’ poor preseason performance of two losses and a draw, Posipanko remains steadfast at the helm. He says he is “never concerned with winning or losing,” only that he gets new players in action to see what combinations of people work at kickoff.

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as that this season.

In previous years, Winthrop could look forward to a group of experienced seniors and a deep roster to lead the Eagles far into the Big South playoffs. For 2010, Posipanko has neither.

“We don’t have the depth we had last year,” Posipanko said, “but it counts where you’re at in the end of the year; we want to play our best in November.”

It would be easy for Winthrop to lose sight of this year by holding on too tight to the memories of last season. Over the summer, the championship-holding Eagles lost five starters, including influential forward Matthew Skonicki and USL-bound midfielder Stephen Nsereko.
 
“You can’t replace the guys we lost with freshmen,” Posipanko said. “It takes years to build them up to win championships and we [have been] very fortunate in the past to do what we’ve done.”  

Winthrop has had the leading scorer or co-leader in the conference since 2002. This year, the squad doesn’t have anyone that looks likely to step up immediately on offense. It all comes down to age.

With nine freshmen and 10 sophomores making up the bulk of the team, Posipanko has inherited the second youngest collection of players in his 22-year stint with the Eagles.  

“They’re all little puppies trying to find their way,” Posipanko said. “At this point, they’re worried about how much playing time they’ll get, where they’ll get it and school is a still a big part of them.”

Posipanko rejects the notion that his young Eagles might be dismayed by the early poor results.

“It’s not a big factor to them,” he said last Friday. “They’re going to realize how important each game is.”

Those puppies will need to grow up rather quickly, as the season is now in full swing, and the Eagles’ schedule doesn’t look friendly. Between the short span of Sept. 10 through15, Winthrop plays three away matches against brutal non-conference opposition including Long Island University and UNC-Wilmington.

Posipanko concedes that it’s “a challenge” for the new players and that it’s hard to get into a routine by playing even two games a week.

It’s even more of a challenge if some of your team is getting bruised from the start. Freshmen Tinotenda Chibharo and Nick Kowalski are expected to be out for several weeks with leg complications while backup goalkeeper Tom Banfield was injured in a practice session and will be out for the season.

But if the Eagles have such a long road ahead, what about Winthrop being ranked in TopDrawerSoccer.com’s Nationwide Top 48 teams of the season? More importantly, what about those Big South preseason rankings with Winthrop picked to finish as high as second?

“I thought we would be 5th,” the coach said. “But if [the team] buy[s] into the fact that we’re improving every game and works hard, we have the talent to do it.”

One thing that’s on Winthrop’s side this year is the level playing field the Big South has this season.

 “I don’t think there are any very good teams left,” Posipanko said. “There are five teams that could win [the Big South Conference].”

Whether that works in the Eagles’ favor or not, they still have to power through their own conference schedule, which offers up 4th-ranked Liberty and 8th-ranked Presbyterian College as warm ups before the most anticipated fixture of the season: a home game with the number one High Point Panthers.

Depending on the outcome, Winthrop’s postseason hopes could be sealed or broken on October 6th, which will leave Coach Posipanko concentrated on building his team as quickly as possible, despite the age gap.