A Soccer Season to Reminisce On

The Peglegs, Stuyvesant’s boys’ soccer team, have long boasted a strong sports culture centered around leadership, camaraderie, and hard work. This year, the team has continued to cement this winning culture, posting a 7-5 record in one of the most stacked conferences the PSAL has to offer.

Led by seniors and captains Martin Iglesias and Mitchell Deutsch, the Peglegs sought to improve on their 8-2-1 record from the prior season. Iglesias set high expectations for the team at the start of the season, looking to make an even deeper playoff run than the year before. Both Iglesias and Deutsch wanted to make a statement by going farther than teams of years past in the playoffs.

Iglesias expected the best from not only his team, but also himself. “[I wanted to] run up my stats from last year with more goal contributions than the season before,” Iglesias said. He certainly surpassed all of his own expectations, improving in all statistical markers with four goals and four assists throughout the campaign. Deutsch found similar success, scoring four goals and assisting five others, a massive leap from the previous season.

Coach Vincent Miller also had sizeable goals for this year. “The expectations for the season, and like every season before, is to finish the season with a winning record and qualify for a playoff spot in the city. I always expect our team to be competing for a top spot in the Manhattan division as well,”Miller said. In a division with historically dominant schools such as Martin Luther King and Beacon, the Peglegs were surely in for a challenge.

Hopes were high after the Peglegs began with a preseason scrimmage victory over their longtime rival, Susan Wagner. The opposition competed in Staten Island’s most competitive division and has generally had the upper hand against the Peglegs in recent years. “We scrimmage Wagner every year and typically lose by a lot,” Deutsch said. However, the Peglegs prevailed against all odds, winning 3-1 with goals scored by senior Aden Garbutt, junior Martin Wu, and sophomore Eben Eichenwald. This early victory proved to be a promising premonition.

The Peglegs’s mid-season matchup against Graphics Campus, a team they had lost to 2-0 earlier in the campaign, was the team’s signature victory. The Peglegs put on a display of fight, grit, and tenacity in a game that came down to the wire. The contest started 1-0 to the opposition after an early break. At that moment, it seemed as if the outcome of the game had already been decided. However, Iglesias rallied back, scoring to tie the game at one apiece. His goal uplifted the Peglegs, revitalizing their hopes as they continued passing the ball back and forth, looking for an opener. Wu’s goal at the end of the second half put the nail in the coffin, cementing the Peglegs’ victory.

The Peglegs did not become the dominant team they are today overnight. They experienced some growing pains as their season progressed. Though the team achieved an 11-0 blowout win against the Bayard Rustin Titans, they had lost three of their first four starting games. Things were looking rough, to say the least. “At the beginning of the season, we had a rocky start. We had chemistry issues, and we were losing games because we weren’t playing as a team,” Iglesias said. However, the Peglegs were determined to prove to everyone that this dynamic would not be the story of their season. The Peglegs practiced for hours on end on the rooftops of Pier 40, scrimmaging until sunset. They learned to work together as one cohesive unit, building chemistry both on and off the field. “We began to bond as a team outside of the field, and sure enough, the group was more united, and results followed,” Iglesias said. The Peglegs gained momentum throughout the season, ending with an impressive four-game winning streak with a point spread of 20-1.

Entering the postseason, it seemed as if the Peglegs were geared to surpass Iglesias’s hopes of making a deep playoff run. However, the team unfortunately suffered a heartbreaking playoff loss to the Golden Knights of James Madison High School. The Peglegs came just one goal shy of upsetting the seventh-seeded Knights as the 26th seed. The opposition’s defense was dogged, holding the Peglegs to a single goal scored by Garbutt in the first half on just six shots total by the team. Though the Peglegs allowed two goals in the first 45 minutes, their defense in the second was as solid as a brick wall, clamping the Knights up to a scoreless second half. However, their efforts proved not to be enough to overcome the deficit, losing 2-1. “We were built to win playoff games. I really felt that this team could have had a long playoff run,” Miller said. Though the Peglegs’ playoff aspirations were crushed, all who played their hearts out in that game left them on the field.

Though the Peglegs may have had somewhat of a disappointing end to the season, they certainly have a bright future ahead of them. Despite losing many talented seniors such as James Colvin and Ryan Petrauskas, the team’s leading scorers, as well as their unsung hero, goalie Sayeb Khan, the Peglegs are retaining their core. Eighteen of the 27 rostered will continue to exert the team’s winning culture next year. Wu and sophomore Michael Avrahami, who scored four and three goals, respectively, will return next year to continue the Peglegs’ reign of dominance. Deutsch applauds the non-seniors who stepped up when it mattered most. “A lot more underclassmen are going to be starting, which is great, because it prepares them to start their senior year,” Deutsch said.

Iglesias shared his aspirations for the next generation. “[I hope] the team stays close together and [...] that they need to play as a team if they want to produce results,” he said.

Expectations for the Peglegs remain unchanged: to force a deep playoff run. With the talent the Peglegs currently have on roster, there’s certainly no reason to think otherwise.