Benefield: SCL boys brace for winter soccer

Today is the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year. It signals change.

But for the boys soccer teams in the Sonoma County League getting their feet wet, literally, in this first season of winter soccer, many things look the same.

Petaluma and Elsie Allen again look to be in the top echelon of league play, with Petaluma perhaps edging out the Lobos as preseason favorite.

Let’s start with this: The Trojans went 9-3 in league (same as the Lobos), but racked up an 18-3-1 overall record and won the North Coast Section Division 1 title game against Fortuna in the fall of 2015, the last time the SCL competed in the autumn. Granted, the competition was thinner after the departure of the North Bay League, and the Trojans are not expected to defend their NCS title now that they are playing in the winter.

But they are expected to make waves in the SCL.

“Petaluma is playing some great soccer,” said Piner coach Sean Sutherland. “They are beating really good teams.”

In preseason action, the Trojans defeated a resurgent Windsor team 4-2 on Dec. 8. This is a Windsor squad that dispatched reigning NBL champ Santa Rosa 2-0 last week.

“I think the Petaluma and Elsie teams will be strong,” Healdsburg coach Herbert Lemus said. “Petaluma had a very strong squad last year and their JV was pretty good as well.”

Petaluma is the only SCL team to return an All-Empire selection. Marco Silveira was just a junior when he was named to the first team last year.

But coaches say Elsie Allen has the proverbial pipeline of club players that keeps the Lobos in the hunt year after year.

“Elsie Allen has a feeder program from Atletico (Santa Rosa). Any time they lose players, they seem to replace them,” Lemus said. “They are so consistent every year.”

The Lobos may very well be trying to avenge an early exit from the playoffs last season. Despite getting the No. 3 seed, the Lobos fell to No. 6 Lick-Wildmerding in the quarterfinal round.

Toss in a slew of young, emerging-talent teams and league contests promise to be full of surprises.

Perhaps not a surprise will be the strength of Sonoma Valley again this year.

Despite scrambling for suitable practice space in this early inclement weather, coach Pedro Merino said the Dragons are likely to have a squad that could make trouble. But you won’t hear that from Merino.

“I try to put my team together as fast as possible with what I can,” he said. And fast may be the operative word for the Dragons.

But many successful teams across the league and, in fact, across the North Bay, come with chunks of rosters intact from the club season. Sonoma Valley had just four players who go that route, Merino said.

“I like that challenge,” he said.

Another challenge? Finding a playing surface that isn’t a mess.

Sonoma Valley doesn’t have lights on campus, and when the team hosts night games they are held at nearby Arnold Field. But that facility doesn’t have enough space for a full-size soccer field with adequate breathing room, Merino said.

The on-campus soccer field? Natural grass.

So the Dragons will play their home games on the synthetic turf fields at East Washington Park in Petaluma and they’ll practice where they can, even if it means under the overhang near the English building on campus.

“When it rains, it’s kind of difficult because the gyms are filled with basketball,” he said. “Either on the black top or places where it’s covered … underneath the English building.”

Up in Healdsburg it’s more of the same. The Hounds hold practice on the tennis courts when the weather turns bad, which has been fairly often this preseason.

“Normally we play at Rec Park or at the high school,” Lemus said. “But they are redoing the field at Rec Park for baseball so that field is unavailable to us as of yet, so we don’t know if and when we are going to be playing on it.”

But as much as the weather is playing a little havoc on teams and training, coaches I talked to are excited about making the leap to winter. The weather may be tougher, but so is the competition.

“I’m excited,” Sutherland said. “It’s going to be competitive.”

You can reach staff columnist Kerry Benefield at 526-8671 or kerry.benefield@pressdemocrat.com, on Twitter @benefield and on Instagram at kerry.benefield. Podcasting on iTunes and SoundCloud “Overtime with Kerry Benefield.”