The Garrettsville Lions Club U16 soccer team (made up of 8th, 9th and 10th graders) just concluded their very successful indoor season at the Tallmadge Rec Center in the high school division. They were only defeated once in the 1st session of 10 games as they lost the 2nd game to Southeast (mostly seniors). The Lions were leading until late in the game when senior Brandon McCullough scored three straight goals to give Southeast a comeback win. (Brandon McCullough had scored three goals on Senior Night at Garfield to give Southeast a 3 to 0 win during the high school regular season). The Lions went on to win the last eight games of the session outscoring their opponents 61 to 28. They defeated teams from Akron Ellet, Akron Manchester, Cuyahoga Falls, Field, Kent, Rootstown, Stow, Springfield, and Tallmadge. Garfield sophomore Zach Gorby led the offense scoring in every game with multiple goals in seven of the 10 games. Crestwood freshman Landon Little and sophomores Caleb Gula and Frank Fugman scored 12, 7 and 5 goals respectively. Rootstown freshman Isaiah Sweizer scored 10 goals, 8th grader Joe Golgosky and 15 year old Art Suphakrit, both from Garfield scored 5 goals each during the 1st session.
The 2nd session started out similar to the first, winning the first game before playing Southeast again. The Lions were leading 3 to 2 with five minutes left in the game and had held Brandon McCullough scoreless when Deja-vu struck again (3rd time in a row) as he scored the final three goals of the game to give them a 5 to 3 win. After another win, the Lions ran into a Kent Rough Riders Red team who would only be their third loss in the 20 games. Kent Red (all upper classmen) finished with 20 wins and 0 losses, but the Lions defeated the other Kent Rough Riders team twice (once each session). The Lions went on to win their last six games scoring 68 goals and giving up 30. The 2nd session they defeated teams from Akron Manchester, Coventry, Cuyahoga Falls, Field, Hudson, Kent, Rootstown and Tallmadge. Zach Gorby once again led the offense, scoring in nine out of 10 games with another seven out of 10 multiple goal games during the 2nd session. Caleb Gula added 11 goals, Isaiah Sweizer 10, Landon Little 7 and Frank Fugman, Art Suphakrit and Joe Golgosky each scored 5 goals again.
In the two sessions Zach Gorby totaled 51 goals and 55 assists scoring in 19 out of the 20 games and had 14 multiple goal games. Isaiah Sweizer finished with 20 goals, Landon Little had 19, Caleb Gula 18 and Art Suphakrit, Frank Fugman and Joe Golgosky had 10 goals each. Everyone on the team scored during the season including new soccer player and 2nd session goalie Evan Peters a sophomore from Garfield (Rootstown’s freshman Dino Sorboro played goalie for the first session). The defense was anchored by Garfield sophomores John Lininger, Mason Mayoros, Andrew Morrissey (Andrew supported the defense while scoring 5 goals on the season) and freshman Chad Angermeier. Also playing defense the majority of the time were three other freshman Jarrod Slechta (Crestwood), Bryan Zalamea (Rootstown) and Tyler Bisson (Ravenna). One of the most impressive stats was Garfield’s Joe Golgosky scoring in seven games in a row, including against Southeast and Kent Red and he’s only an 8th grader!
In the first session there were 16 area high school teams and 14 teams in the second session. Overall the Lions beat 12 different high school teams, and five teams twice… which was an amazing accomplishment since most of the teams had all 17 and 18 year olds, while the Garrettsville Lions Club team was made up of 13, 14 and 15 year olds to start the season (some have since turned 16).
