The Stuyvesant Peglegs Ready to Improve and Excel Performances

The Stuyvesant Peglegs, the boys’ varsity soccer team, will be looking to build on last season’s performance. After finishing the season second in their league with a solid record of 8-2, they went on to lose in the first round of the playoffs to Newcomers High School. The Peglegs finished just after Martin L. King High School, which boasted an undefeated record of 10-0.

During the regular season, both of the Peglegs’ two losses were handed to them by Martin L. King Jr. High School, the defending city champions, who crushed the Peglegs 4-0 and 5-0. Coach Vincent Miller will look for improvement against Martin L. King this year, which will be important in a division where there are several new teams, including Louis Brandeis High School and The Columbia Secondary School, schools that are replacing The Frederick Douglass Academy and The Julia Richman Education Complex and have not seen great success in their division. Columbia went 2-10 and Louis Brandeis went 3-9 last season. The Peglegs are confident that the two schools’ integration into the Manhattan A League will not distract from their main rival, however, which remains Martin L. King High School.

Following in the footsteps of last year’s captains, Michael Gillow (‘18) and Sunny Levitis (‘18), seniors Kevin Mitchell and Jeffrey Shen have large shoes to fill. Last year, Shen was a mainstay in the Peglegs roster. He played in the team’s only playoff game and in nine of the ten games during the regular season. He had an admirable goal-scoring record. In the span of nine games played, Shen scored three and assisted one goal. Even more impressive is that the three goals came from only six shots. While Mitchell only played four of the ten games last season and did not make an appearance during the playoff game, his leadership will be important to the team’s success this year.

The leadership of new captains will be integral to the success of this new season. “We want to go 8-2 this season. There were a lot of seniors that left last year, so this year, some of the younger players [will] have more time,” said senior and co-captain Shen. After a solid season last year, the Peglegs will be looking to replicate the same form during the regular season. However, they will hope to push further into the playoffs this time around.