Ryan Dunnigan, the boys’ soccer coach at Putnam Science Academy, saw some kinks in the armor that tempered his enthusiasm when his team played well in the preseason and carried it over to the first handful of games that counted.
As the season played on, what Dunnigan saw early, reared its collective head.
“I think we learned what our level was, particularly in terms of teams that we should be able to perform pretty well against, versus teams that are definitely a level above,” he said. “You can see a big gap in quality and experience.”
The Mustangs finished the season 8-7-1, which really was better than expected considering the overall youth and lack of depth. But both caught up as the games piled up.
“Our form dipped just purely from fatigue,” Dunnigan said. “A lot of it goes back to the fact that we didn’t put chances away in games that would have allowed us to rotate at times. So our top guys had to keep playing more because the games were still close, rather than get them some rest and get some of the younger guys some valuable minutes and experience for them. I would try to get them in, but our level of play just wasn’t the same, and we would end up leaking goals. So that was frustrating on that end.”
As compared to last year’s team, this group had better top-end talent in terms of attacking and defensively. But the drop-off from the top to the middle-level talent was much wider than last year, which resulted in the disparity in minutes.
Still, there were some very encouraging signs as the Mustangs move forward to the spring season and beyond.
“I certainly learned what younger guys I know will be able to contribute moving forward,” Dunnigan said. “We were able to find starters like Geo (Aniceto) and Unai (Castillejo) and Marcos (Chantada) and Fran (Cuñat). So from that perspective we were able to do well, really well.”
Dunnigan doesn’t anticipate playing 15 games again in the spring, but he does anticipate having a wider rotation of players. Because there is no league play during the spring, there is no title to play for, and the games can be more about player development, to some extent
“From an expectation standpoint, wins and losses won’t really matter,” he said. “Yes, of course I’m going to try to win them, but it’ll be more about getting guys minutes that need them and trying different things. We’ll have that flexibility to do it where the risk-reward is very low. “We’re not looking at league standings or looking at making the playoffs or different tournaments where there’s an emphasis on results. It’s going to be more so about getting guys better prepared. Getting the seniors to go make that next jump and also trying to continue the growth of our younger players.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy

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