South Brunswick Girls Soccer Aims for Another Great Year

While the South Brunswick High School girls soccer team does enter the 2011 season needing to fill in a hole here and there, the Vikings have most of the field pretty well covered.

South Brunswick is coming off a season in which the team went 13-3-4 and placed second in both the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament and the GMC Red Division.

One of the highlights of the season was defeating East Brunswick twice, stopping that team's 57-game winning streak in the GMC. Unfortunately, East Brunswick defeated South Brunswick, 1-0, in double overtime in the GMC title game.

"We lost four seniors to graduation, but we are returning a good core of the team," South Brunswick Coach Beth Barrio said. "Hopefully, the girls will take that knowledge and move forward."

One of the returning starters is goalie Vanessa Perdomo, a senior. She was the GMC Player of the Year last year. Perdomo has the school's shutout record for a season.

"We only allowed eight goals in the twenty games we played last season," Barrio noted. "We had an outstanding defense last year. We lost two senior defenders. Defensively, we are in a rebuilding process."

Julia Bossert and Julie Curtio, both seniors, are returning starters on the defense.

"Nothing else is set back there," Barrio said. "We are still in the process of figuring out the starting lineup."

Another returning starter is Jessica Puchalski, a junior that plays forward. She scored 20 goals and was the leading scorer in the Red Division.

Returning starters in the midfield are Kellee Baylis (senior), Jade Gonzales (senior) and Hailey Hendrickson (junior).

Other returning players are Casey Armstrong (a senior forward), Jackie Marciniak (a senior defender), Michelle Spataro (a senior midfielder), Bryce Knoblock (a junior midfielder), Cagnie Antczak (a sophomore midfielder) and Jenna Mastronardi (a sophomore forward).

Alexa Caputo (defense), Alyssa Mora (midfielder) and Rachel Schaffer (forward) are seniors that are new to the team.

"We have two big holes in the defense we're looking to fill," Barrio said. "We also have an outstanding midfielder and forward that left. Fortunately, we do have a lot of returning starters back.

"We're hoping midfield is a strong piece of the puzzle. We're also hoping Jessica can finish goals the way she did last year."

South Brunswick will get its first chance to see how well it filled in its losses when it hosts Sayreville on Sept. 9.