Aaron Clark was approached in December about coaching the Pennsylvania team in the inaugural NY/PA Corporate Cup Soccer Showcase, and the idea of the game appealed to him.
“I think it’s such a great sport, and it’s growing and it’s getting bigger,” said Clark, the 2016 Big 30 Coach of the Year after leading Port Allegany to its first District 9 title. “Anything that can continue to help the sport grow is a good thing.”
But one month after agreeing to coach, Clark and his staff of assistants were faced with a challenge: Pick the 22 best high-schoolers to make the team. More than 40 showed up for the tryout.
“That was the hardest part,” Clark said. “There were so many good players that were there — you probably could’ve picked 30 players and been justified in every last player picked. There were so many good, quality players that we had to say ‘sorry’ to.”
Clark has coached or coached against all of the players named to the team. In advance of Saturday’s 7 p.m. matchup with New York at St. Bonaventure’s Marra Athletics Complex, he’s tried to manage the familiar, ultra-talented Pennsy players as best he can. Assisting in the process have been Matt Lawton, his aide at Port Allegany; as well as Bradford High’s Wes Lohrman and Smethport’s Jesse Cheatle.
“It’s intimidating,” Clark said. “These are all players that are well-coached and they’re used to their own systems, and (we’re) trying to find common ground with all of them. Thankfully Wes Lohrman has been involved in every step of the way as well, and he’s been so helpful. He’s basically run our practices, and I just sit back and watch and try to see who’s working well with one another. But it’s been intimidating because everybody that’s involved is such a good player and you don’t want to disrupt a lot of what they’ve picked up over the years. The goal is to try to integrate everybody’s skills into sort of one game plan.”
The Pennsylvania roster is comprised of players from eight schools — Bradford (6), Port Allegany (6), Elk County Catholic (4), Smethport (2), Coudersport (1), Kane (1), Northern Potter (1) and Ridgway (1).
The forwards are Payton Caden (Port Allegany), Tucker Kosa (Northern Potter) and Frank Singer (Elk County Catholic).
Playing midfielder are Andrew Gallup (Smethport), MacKenzie Elliott (Port Allegany), Calvin Burleson (Port Allegany), Brandon Kinkead (Ridgway), Michael Kane (Coudersport), Jared Lucas (Bradford), Brent Kennedy (Bradford) and Erick Mader (Elk County Catholic).
At fullback are Justin Tanner (Smethport), John Mader (Elk County Catholic), Jason French (Bradford), Charles Bobby (Elk County Catholic), Jacob Johnson (Bradford), Matt O’Brien (Bradford) and Bryce Baker (Port Allegany).
Port Allegany’s Brandon McCaslin is a forward/midfielder and Bradford’s Alex Kelly a midfielder/fullback.
Sharing goalkeeping duties will be Josh Mealy (Port Allegany) and Brennan Schultz (Kane).
Earlier this week, Clark said he was in the process of planning a starting lineup and four lineups to distribute playing time evenly and keep players in their most natural positions.
“My plan is I want to have everything drawn up as far as who plays where and at what time and basically just sit down and watch the game,” he said.
Given the talent assembled on both rosters, what kind of game does Clark expect in terms of scoring?
“I’m a fan of defense. I like to see a low-scoring game,” he said. “I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s probably going to be a pretty high-scoring game. My hope is that we can keep the other side under four or five for the game and that would give us a chance to win, which really goes against my normal mentality. My normal mentality would be go in and get a shutout. But I’m sure that it’s going to be really hard to do that.”
Ultimately, Clark hopes this year’s game is the start of something successful.
“I can’t say ‘thank you’ enough to the guys that have organized this, Dave (Talbot) and Kris (Linderman of the Olean Soccer Club),” he said. “They’ve been so fantastic to work with. I can’t imagine the amount of work that they’ve honestly done to get this going. I hope the players that are involved can appreciate what these guys have done, and it’d be nice to see this game continue.”
