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About The Cover
GLORY DAYS General Contact Information Phone: 856-336-2600 Email: advertising@acglorydays.com Publisher Dave O’Sullivan Email: sully@acglorydays.com @GDsullysays on Twitter Contributors Amy D’Adamo, graphic design Mark Trible, special football writer Larry Henry Jr., contributing writer
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n 2021, Glory Days Magazine is launching a new feature called “State of the Program” in which we take a look at a particular team, how it has fared the past couple of seasons, what the head coach’s vision for the future is, and what kind of success that program might be able to achieve in the next couple of seasons. We start of with Ocean City football, a team that in 2019 made it all the way to a sectional championship game and this year was one of the top 10 teams in South Jersey. Head coach Kevin Smith believes the Red Raiders have gotten to the point where they can reload each year rather than rebuild, and 2021 will certainly challenge that notion as O.C. graduates a very good crop of seniors this year. Check out page 10 of this digital edition for a deeper dive into Red Raiders football.
Volume 8, Issue 5. (Issue No. 154) 2021 Glory Days Magazine LLC, all rights reserved.
Story Idea? Email sully@acglorydays.com or direct message Sully on Twitter, @GDSullysays
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headlines u PRESENTED BY BUNTING FAMILY PHARMACY u We’re off and running
u The high school basketball season has officially started, although things look a lot different than in years past. No South Jersey schools are allowing fans into gymnasiums, most have players on the bench socially distanced, and some schools aren’t even letting media attend. The best fans can hope for is that their school is able to live stream the games. Welcome to the world of a global pandemic. But, if the basketball season can go relatively smoothly that should bode well for outdoor sports in the spring, such as baseball, softball and lacrosse.
Off to a hot start
u Wildwood Catholic senior Marianna Papazoglou (pictured) seemingly didn’t need much of a preseason to get warmed up for her final campaign on the hardwood. Coming off a 25-5 season, the Crusaders have jumped out to a 2-0 start thanks in large part to Papazoglou, who scored 32 points in a season-opening rout of Cape May Tech then added 24 points in Catholic’s impressive victory over Atlantic City. So far,
Wildwood Catholic is averaging better than 70 points per game.
Huge showcase planned
u The 2021 football season looks as though it will get off to an awesome start, as a huge showcase event featuring nine games during a three-day span in Ocean City is being planned by the West Jersey Football League. There will
almost certainly be some of the top teams in South Jersey involved, as well as out-of-state squads.
Where will he go?
u Holy Spirit star running back Patrick Smith, who this past fall de-committed from Colorado State, is set to make his final college decision on Feb. 3 at the high school.
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SENIOR CAPTAIN / LIAM FRIEL, WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP FOOTBALL
Twist of fate turned Friel into QB Four years ago Township’s freshman team needed a signal caller. A lineman stepped up, and the rest is history By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer reshman football coaches have to learn to be resourceful. After all, the varsity team takes the best of everything — equipment, practice field and weight room time. Players. A couple years ago, before Mike Schatzman took over as head coach at Washington Township, the former Minutemen player and lifelong township resident was the skipper of the school’s freshman team, and when the junior varsity program plucked away his only quarterback, Schatzman did what any freshman football coach would do: he asked if anybody on
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the team knew how to throw a football. Young offensive lineman Liam Friel, whose father was once a star quarterback at West Catholic in Philadelphia, stepped up and told coach Schatzman that he had a pretty good arm. From that first day of freshman football practice, and every day since, Friel has been a quarterback at Washington Township. He became the starter early in his junior year and has helped usher in a new enthusiasm for the program under coach Schatzman. The Minutemen went just 2-2 in an abbreviated COVID-19 schedule in 2020, but have begun to show some promise that they can start to turn things around and become a playoff com-
petitor after a couple of two-win seasons. A lot of the credit for a new belief in what the Minutemen can be going forward has to go to Friel and the other four captains on this year’s squad, who put in the time and effort it took to help build a foundation that Schatzman believes can put Washington Township in position to become a consistently winning program in the years to come. “I started playing football when I was 4 years old and I was a lineman all the way through youth football. We didn’t have a quarterback the first day of practice (freshman year), I threw a ball to coach Schatz and he said, ‘you’re going to be our quarterback.’ I was very surprised,” Friel said. “I was a little nervous at first because I had never played the position before, but once I got the hang of it, it became second nature to me and I really love it now. My dad was a quarterback so he helped me out a lot, and I just got better and better at it as freshman year went
See Friel, page 9
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Jan. 30, 2021 w Glory Days Magazine w Page 9 Friel, from page 6 on. I actually had a very good freshman year, then sophomore year came and I kept getting better and it has ended up working out for me.” “He played offensive line his whole life before we made him a quarterback when he was a freshman. I was coaching the freshmen then and they brought a kid up to play quarterback on JV, so the freshman team didn’t have an other quarterbacks. We kind of did the oldschool way of just asking if anybody knew how to throw a football. Liam said he had a good arm but never really got a chance because he was a bigger kid on the youth level, so he always got stuck on the line or playing defensive end,” Schatzman explained. “He had a natural ability to throw the football. He’s still raw, even though he’s been getting better every year, and he has that offensive line mentality. He’s a tough kid, and he’s surprisingly a very good runner. He can sneak up on you.” And Schatzman said he believes Friel, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound senior, is just scratching the surface in terms of his football potential. Friel said he has garnered interest from schools such as Montclair State, William Patterson, Dickenson, McDaniel and Rowan. Friel threw for 467 yards and three touchdowns this past season, and as a junior he threw for nearly 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns. “I think the biggest thing for a lot of the colleges that are recruiting him is his potential and the opportunity he has to get better,” Schatzman said. “Based on his junior year film to his senior year, it’s a big difference, so I think his best football is in front of him. He’s just scratching the surface. Against Eastern this year he threw for a couple touchdowns, ran for a couple and put up over 300 yards of offense. I would have been curious to see what he could have done had we had a full schedule.” After losing 51-6 to start the 2019 season and trailing Kingsway in the second game, Schatzman decided to put Friel into the lineup full time. The Minutemen lost that game against Kingsway, 21-0, but then went on a three-game winning streak with Friel as the starting quarterback, beating Atlantic City, Eastern and Egg Harbor Township.
Glory Days photos/Sully
Friel threw for nearly 1,500 yards during his two years as a varsity quarterback and added 14 touchdowns. “I didn’t start the first game of the season but I came in at halftime of the second game, then started the third game and we got our first win and then went on a little winning streak after that. When I got the chance to start, I was really nervous. The first few drives showed that, but once I calmed down and relaxed I was able to do my thing,” Friel said. “It’s different. Going from being an offensive lineman where you walk up to the line of scrimmage and just point out the guy you are supposed to block to having to read a defense, check plays and do everything else — it was nerve wracking, to say the least. “I love it. I really think (playing quarterback) has helped me as a person,” Friel added. “I think it’s done a lot of things for me and I really love playing the position. I think the hardest thing for me was learning to go through the progressions when you see certain coverages, but being an offensive lineman helped me play quarterback. It made it easier to know how to read defenses, and if we were in a run play I knew what kind of front the defense was in,
so I could check to a pass play. It made things like that easier.” Schatzman said what he enjoyed even more than Friel’s development as a quarterback the past three years is how far he has come as a person and leader. “He’s an awesome kid and a good student. He’s definitely a kid who we enjoyed having. He’s not the most vocal kid in the world, but as a quarterback he really commanded the huddle, and he did all the little things,” the coach said. “He’s a worker and he led by example. We had some younger quarterbacks that he took under his wing, so there were a lot of little things people don’t necessarily see — but things I would notice — that made him a good captain. When he had to be vocal, he was. If things weren’t going right he would definitely get on guys, and that’s something he improved on. He really came out of his shell a lot this year and I think a lot of that had to do with experience and just being more confident in his ability. I think that played a big factor, but he’s such a good kid that other
kids would follow him. “Some of the things he did as a junior were just growing pains, and I think we had a better cast around him (this year). The past two years, before this year, we played a lot of young guys, so he kind of grew with those guys throughout the course of his high school career and I think this year he had a more natural feel for the position, and he was more comfortable with some of the throws. And having another year under his belt he was able to pick things up a lot quicker than in previous seasons. That’s the biggest thing for any quarterback, gaining experience and having the ability to see different defenses.” “I took (being a captain) as seriously as I took everything else. I just wanted to keep everybody’s head up about our season. A lot of seniors had their heads down, but we had five senior captains and we all worked together, even when we were shut down we had to keep our heads up. I tried to be vocal and help guys out,” Friel said. “Being a leader is about making sure you’re the first guy on the field and the last guy off the field. I’ve learned about the kind of leader I can be. There were times when we were down and I had to be there to pick the guys up and say, ‘come on, let’s go, we can do this.’ And our whole mindset would change. There were times when we came back and won a football game because of that, so I think being a quarterback helped me become a better leader both on and off the football field.” Friel’s Washington Township career may not have ended the way he and his senior teammates would have hoped, but wherever he chooses to go next year he’ll bring some fond memories with him. “My first varsity touchdown pass is a great memory, against Eastern. It was like an under-Sam, over-Mike, almost like a dig route, and I threw it about 20 yards right to the back of the end zone,” he said. “It’s one of the greatest feelings in the world when you score a touchdown, or throw a touchdown, or complete a big pass — that’s always the best feeling when you can do something like that. “I’m going to miss this a lot.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
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VIC’S SUBS COVER STORY
state of the program
Raiders ready for next big challenge By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer hen Kevin Smith took over the Ocean City football program a decade ago, he had a plan. He wanted to build the Red Raiders into a perennial playoff contender, and a team that could legitimately talk about winning sectional championships. It’s easy to say, ‘yup, that’s our plan.’ It’s a whole different thing to be willing to do all the little things it takes to build that kind of program, and to suffer through some losing seasons be-
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fore the foundation of what you’re trying to build gets set. In Smith’s first season, the Red Raiders went 2-8. A year later, in 2012, they were a game better, posting a 3-7 mark. The team traded off 4-6 and 3-7 years until 2016, when Ocean City posted the first winning season under Smith at 6-4. Still, that wasn’t enough to get into the postseason, and the Raiders’ were still in search of their first playoff appearance under Smith. Things began to change, however, in that 2016 season, as the Red Raid-
ers began to turn a corner and become more of a program than just a team full of guys who liked to play football. With each passing year the offseason workouts got a little bit tougher, the coaching staff felt it could challenge the players just a little bit more, and that brick-laying philosophy has begun to pay off in a big way. Ocean City has made it to the postseason in each of the last four years, and in 2019 the Red Raiders beat rival Mainland Regional in the opening round of states, then topped Long Branch to reach the South Jersey Group 4 championship game, where they fell to a very strong Shawnee squad. This past season was a little unorthodox with the coronavirus pandemic playing havoc on South Jersey football schedules, but still Ocean City was able to take another step forward, as it found itself in several top rankings among South Jersey schools — and
stayed there throughout a season that saw the Raiders go 6-2 and record some signature wins, including beating St. Joseph for the first time in nearly two decades. Ocean City also beat Millville and scored the most lopsided win over rival Mainland in the series’ history, routing the Mustangs 63-0 on Nov. 6. Smith said he credits this year’s senior class with showing the ability to build on the foundation that was laid for them by previous classes, and raising the expectation level for the program as a whole. “We’re losing a helluva senior class. We knew those guys were going to be good when they were freshmen but they’ve exceeded our expectations. One thing they are leaving behind, other than a lot of wins, is a sense of how to do things,” Smith said. “I think
See Raiders, page 11
Jan. 30, 2021 w Glory Days Magazine w Page 11 Raiders, from page 10 they’ve done a great job with how to train the younger kids in terms of practice habits and how to conduct themselves in the weight room and off the field. Now the challenge is to keep that moving forward. We’re only bringing back four starters on both sides of the ball, so there will be some challenges in terms of replacing the talent, but I really do think that with the numbers we have — we’re near 100 kids — and with the practice habits and being able to conduct themselves the right way, I think we’re going to stay competitive.” One of the biggest keys to Ocean City’s success has been consistency, and that starts with a coaching staff that has remained largely intact for about seven years now. “If I had to pinpoint one thing it would go back to when we built our weight room. The first four years I was the head coach we didn’t really have a lifting facility here at the school and we had the kids spread out all over and doing stuff on their own. Not only were they not training properly, but we weren’t building any sense of team unity. Then we built the weight room and started training hard together, and they got used to doing hard things together during the offseason, and I think that really carried over,” Smith said. “Also, we were fortunate enough to bring aboard some really good coaches. I think we have one of the more consistent coaching staffs in the area with guys like Sean Matthews, Paul Callahan, Frank LaSasso, Mike Eisenstein — there’s a ton of football experience that those guys bring to the table. And we’ve been stable. We’ve had the same staff together for seven years, and that helps.” “The coaching staff was phenomenal my four years,” said Jake Inserra, a senior linebacker and running back this year. “They really installed the idea of family, which is what I love, and that has helped propel this team forward. They care about academics and they care about what we’re doing, not just as football players. They made sure every kid was doing
Ocean City by the numbers
Coach Kevin Smith career record: 48-52 (2-3 in NJSIAA playoff games) Records last four seasons 2017-2020: 7-3, 4-6, 9-3, 6-2 Points per game offense 2017-2020: 31.2, 19.5, 27.2, 35.1 Points per game defense 2017-2020: 20.7, 18.9, 10.9, 14.3 his part for the team, and their football IQ is really high. They put our team in great positions to excel.” It’s not easy for a public school to build up a dynasty in South Jersey football with so many good parochial schools, such as Holy Spirit, St. Joseph, St. Augustine Prep and others, showing the ability to lure top players; and Ocean City has the added distraction of being, well, Ocean City. It’s not easy for
coaches to convince teenage boys to give up time in the spring and summer at a shore resort to go work out for the football season. “This is a public school, so you get what you get, you can’t go out and pick-and-choose, so we have to keep building the enthusiasm and the feeder pro-
See Raiders, page 13
Jan. 30, 2021 w Glory Days Magazine w Page 13 Raiders, from page 11 grams. One thing I really love at our games — and we weren’t able to see it this year because of COVID — but seeing a ton of young kids at our games, kids from Upper Township and Ocean City. There’s a lot of enthusiasm for our program now,” Smith said. “When I first got the job, the best kids every year from Ocean City or Upper were going to St. Joe or St. Augustine Prep, but we’ve been able to keep kids at home. You still lose them every now and then, you get a kid like Chandler Bird who is at BYU now and who went to Prep. He’s an Upper kid and we would have loved to have kept him, but for the most part we’re keeping kids home and they are excited to come play here.” Another challenge in 2020 was dealing with COVID-19. The Ocean City coaching staff asked its players not to socialize with their friends, to not go to parties or gather in large groups. And the team responded. The program was one of the few in South Jersey that didn’t have to shut down during the season because of positive COVID tests. “That was a huge lesson for us in terms of appreciating the moment, having a goal and making the real sacrifices,” Smith said. “It’s one thing to say we want to be a successful program so you guys are going to have to make the sacrifice to go lift and do those types of things. Those are things kids want to do. It’s a whole other thing to say, ‘hey, you know that party where that girl you’ve been chasing around for awhile is going to be there? You really need to think about if you should go there and be in that environment.’ I know our guys gave up a lot of that stuff. We live in Ocean City where there are a lot of people and a lot of social life, so that was hard. If I’m honest with myself I think, would I have done that when I was 17 years old? But these guys were invested and that made a huge difference.” And that shows just how far this program has come. Now, football is more important than the beach, or surfing, or parties, or whatever other distractions young men might face. The players understand that if they want to be a state
Glory Days photo/Sully
Ocean City will have to find a way to replace the offensive production of Jake Schneider, who will graduate this spring as the program’s all-time leader in receptions. championship program someday, there are sacrifices that must be made. “The goal is still to win the South Jersey Group 4 championship. We were in the finals in 2019 and this past year we got to the pod championship after we beat St. Joe, then that whole fiasco with Camden happened and that was frustrating. I feel like we are right there, we just haven’t achieved the ultimate goal yet,” Smith said. “We’re breaking in a new quarterback next year, Riley Gunnels, who is a big kid. We threw him in there against DePaul when (Joe) Repetti got banged up a little, and his first drive he looked like a deer in the headlights, but he went out there the next drive against their firstteam defense and took us on a 70-yard drive that ended with a touchdown, so that was great experience for him. We’ll have to tailor the offense to his strengths. He’s a very different quarterback than Repetti so that will require some adjustment on our part. On the
defensive side of the ball we have to replace our two inside linebackers, Inserra and Brad Jamison, who is going to Bucknell. From a scheme perspective we’re going to look a little different personnel-wise so we have to figure out the right schemes that work.” Inserra may be on the way out the door this spring on his way to the University of Pennsylvania, but he’s confident the players left behind will be able to carry on this new winning tradition Ocean City has built the past four years. “I think this program is in great hands now. The soon-to-be senior class and this year’s sophomores, they are all hard workers and they are in great hands with these coaches. they’ve had some great role models to base their practices off of. I think big things are coming to Ocean City,” Inserra said. “You put in all that extra work in the offseason and in the summers, and to see everything come together and start
being successful, it feels really great to see all that hard work coming together. The sky is the limit for this team in the future. The guys below this year’s seniors, they know how to work hard and they have a ton of talent. We have big hopes for Ocean City in the coming years.” Smith typically isn’t a big rah-rah guy, and he said the team’s slogan for 2021 could very well be the same as it has been for years now. “We’ve always been a ‘find-a-way’ team, that’s been our slogan, and I feel like that still applies,” he said. “We’re in these unique circumstances still. We’re still trying to figure out the best way to get our offseason training done. It’s going to be another year where you just have to figure out the best way to get things done.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
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SENIOR CAPTAIN / JAKE INSERRA, OCEAN CITY FOOTBALL
A leader by any standard Inserra set the tone for Raiders’ rise By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer here are any number of cliches that high school football coaches have turned to for decades when asked by the media about their best players. “He’s a throwback, lunch-pail type of player.” “He’s the kind of kid who is the first one to practice and the last one to leave.” “Nobody works harder than him, both on and off the field.” “Without him, we wouldn’t be the type of team we are today.” And the list goes on and on. Most times, coaches are at least being somewhat genuine when they rattle off a few of these to speed along the interview process so they can get back to watching film. But if you ask Ocean City skipper Kevin Smith about senior linebacker and running back Jake Inserra, there is passion in his voice and he’ll rip off every cliche in the book if he has to in order to get a reporter to understand how valuable No. 45 has been to the Red Raiders’ program the past four years. “He’ll be missed, to say the least. He was like having a coach on the field. He understood everything so well in terms of schemes, but more than that he was a great locker room kid and a great leader,” Smith said. “I haven’t
T
Glory Days photo/Sully
For the past two seasons, linebacker Jake Inserra has been the leading tackler for Ocean City’s defense while leading the Red Raiders to 15 wins in 20 games. been around too many kids like him as a coach. We’re desperately going to miss him, no doubt. He was a special kid (as a freshman). You knew who Jake Inserra was. To give you an idea of who Jake Inserra is — he’s the kid who, as an eighth grader, when most eighth graders are terrified of the high school football coach because he rep-
resents something so much bigger than them, he would walk right up to you and introduce himself and shake your hand like a man. He was that kid. “He started for us as a sophomore at linebacker and at the time he got hurt he was our leading tackler. So, he would have been our leading tackler as a sophomore and ended up being just
that as a junior and senior.” Inserra was having a tremendous sophomore season as a starting linebacker before a broken collarbone in Week 6 derailed his campaign. But he came back stronger than ever as a junior and led Ocean City on an improb-
See Inserra, page 15
Jan. 30, 2021 w Glory Days Magazine w Page 15 Inserra, from page 14 able run to the South Jersey Group 4 championship game, where the Red Raiders fell to Shawnee. “I knew I was going to be starting again and building off my sophomore year and what I had already learned. We were graduating a ton of seniors (before the 2019 season) so I had to step up and be a leader my junior year,” said Inserra, who also is an outstanding lacrosse player. “My freshman year, that year was the first time the varsity team had made the playoffs in a long time and I got moved up the last few weeks of that year and I got to see how we were getting better, practicing hard and the culture we were building. My sophomore year, we built off that even more, and everything really came together my junior year. We knew we had a lot of juniors that year and our class was going to be pretty strong. We felt like we were getting slept on by critics and other teams around the state, but we just kept working hard. “This year, we knew we were going to be good because we didn’t really graduate that many guys. Pretty much everything has been building up the past couple of years.” For a lot of teams, going 9-3 and beating teams like Mainland Regional and Long Branch in the state playoffs might be a flash in the pan, but Ocean City has steadily been building its program year after year, on a foundation of guys just like Inserra — a 5-foot-9, 190-pound bruiser who gets the most out of his size by grinding every day during the offseason and working hard in the film room. This year, the Red Raiders proved they were here to stay, as they spent much of the year in the Glory Days Magazine Best 11 rankings and finished the year 6-2. They could have played for a West Jersey Football League “pod” championship but Camden pulled out of the postseason due to the coronavirus pandemic. Still, during Inserra’s three years on varsity, Ocean City put up a 19-11 record. “Honestly, one of the biggest things is we really did practice like a team. I know it sounds like a cliche, but we really didn’t have a lot of all-stars or star players, and a lot of teams overlooked us while we just kept working hard.
“He’ll be missed, to say the least. He was like having a coach on the field. ... he was a great locker room kid and a great leader. I haven’t been around too many kids like him as a coach.”
Kevin Smith, Ocean City head coach
Our film preparation and our practices I’m sure were better than other teams. Everybody went really hard every minute of practice,” Inserra said. “I knew I had a lot of goals coming out of my junior season. I knew I wanted to have 100 tackles (in 2020), but once the season started getting shortened — and after losing my junior lacrosse season last spring — I was just hoping to have a season. One of my goals was to go undefeated, which, we didn’t quite get there, but we had some statement wins that I was happy about. We knew with our team, and especially our senior class, that we were one of the better teams around, and to finally start getting some credit for it was a testimony to how hard we had been working. We were hyped up about getting credit and seeing ourselves in the Top 15 polls, and we wanted to keep winning and doing our part to stay up there each week.” This year, Inserra was honored with a Mini-Max award, which recognizes players for football performance, academics and community service. Not only was Inserra the Raiders’ leading tackler but he also was the No. 1 running back this past season, and he plans to continue his education at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite all the accolades, however, he knows his numbers were a product of a really good defensive line, which freed him up to roam the field and make tackles. “They make my job really easy, (Matt) Christie, (Mike) Gray, (Mike)
Rhodes and (Will) Drain, they take on a ton of double teams and they are big, huge, athletic guys, so that lets me run free to the ball,” he said. “They made my life easier and I don’t think they got the credit they deserved. The tackles the linebackers were making were all due to the work those guys were putting in. They don’t get the praise they should but they were a huge part of our defense. our front seven was really able to stop the run this year and that’s a testament to how great those guys were up front.” Still, Inserra was a captain and leader in every sense of the word, and that’s something he says comes naturally to him being that his dad, John, is a state trooper and mom, Michelle, a teacher. “That definitely comes from growing up with my mom, dad, brother and sister. My mom and dad have been installing the values of hard work in us since we were in elementary school. I saw my brother do it throughout high school and now my sister is doing the same thing. that’s definitely how we were raised and how my parents told us to work hard. And I also had a lot of guys above me, like Arthur Spackman and Brandon Lin, who had those same values of hard work. I’ve had a lot of great role models in front of me,” Inserra said. “Ever since I was in second grade my dad has been drilling me with the value of hard work, and how good things come when you work hard, so I’ve always grown up like that. It comes from my parents teaching me
that since I was a young kid. “I do enjoy being a leader and I feel like I can be a good role model to younger kids, and I like helping them out. Being a captain is really about putting your team in a good position to win, but also making sure they have good morals as well. I try to show up early and show the team how to work hard so they can copy that example,” he added. “Being a leader came pretty naturally to me. The biggest challenge for some guys is to sort of hone in on what you’re good at. Not every leader has to be vocal. Brandon Lin wasn’t the most vocal guy but he was probably the best leader on our team, just from his actions. If you’re a good speaker, you have to speak, if you’re a hard worker you have to work hard and lead by example. It comes down to who you are and being true to yourself, and if you are people will follow that.” Coach Smith said he has no doubt that Inserra will not only be a huge success at Penn, but with whatever he hopes to accomplish after college as well. “He’s going to go to Penn, so he’s no dummy. Football, for him — I don’t want to say it defined who he was, but he definitely took pride in being a football player. I know he feels like he benefited from being around the coaching staff and having the opportunity to be in a disciplined environment,” Smith said. “His father would tell us all the time about how much he talked about having a purpose and being excited about getting up in the morning, knowing there was a goal in mind that he wanted to achieve. I think that has carried over into other aspects of his life. He’s a very goal-oriented kid. And when you’re going to a school like Penn, when you’re goal-oriented, that can set you up for the rest of your life. “You know how we get when we get older, we get sentimental for the way things used to be — the whole backin-the-day thing,” Smith added. “Jake is the epitome of the back-in-the-day player. He would have looked great in the old one-bar facemask and the shoulder pads that were too big, he would have fit right in during those times.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
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BOYS SOCCER Experienced coach takes over at Holy Spirit Gorgiev grew up in Macedonia, played pro soccer in Europe By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer here Nenad Gorgiev grew up, in Macedonia, a small country north of Greece and sandwiched between Albania and Bulgaria in eastern Europe, soccer is life. Kids start kicking the ball around as soon as they can walk and typically begin playing the game in an organized fashion at around 5 years old. With so much experience — not only in Europe, but coaching club teams in the United States since 2006, Gorgiev believes he can be the guy who turns around the Holy Spirit boys soccer program. He’ll get the chance to prove himself beginning this summer, when the Spartans begin preparing for the 2021 season, which begins in September. Athletic Director Steve Normane announced the hire earlier this month, along with new girls lacrosse coach Kylie Primeau, daughter of former Philadelphia Flyers great Keith Primeau. “My dad was my mentor and my coach, he played professional soccer and was a coach, so I started kicking the ball when I was 5 years old. I played professionally; my first pro game was when I was 17,” said Gorgiev, who runs a soccer training facility in Egg Harbor Township. “Then in 2006, I moved to the United States for a better opportunity. I had traveled in Europe in Italy, Switzerland, France, but when I was in college they had a program for student exchange and I wanted to come and see what it was like here. When I came here, I founded a training company and I’ve been working at that ever since. I have my own training academy based out of Egg Harbor Township. “We didn’t have that many options when I was growing up, in terms of sports, and the most affordable one was soccer,” he explained. “You have a soccer ball, you go outside and play.” Gorgiev said he understands the challenge he’s facing. Spirit is a small school and by no means a soccer powerhouse. Last fall the Spartans went 0-9-1, tying Cape May Tech in the season opener before dropping
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Photo courtesy of Holy Spirit athletics
Nenad Gorgiev, a former professional player in eastern Europe, recenly was hired as the new boys soccer coach at Holy Spirit High. nine straight games. In 2019, the Spartans were 6-11 and in 2018 Spirit was 1-18. “In Europe they watch a lot of soccer on TV and that makes a big difference. There are kids in the United States who watch soccer on TV, but not everybody, and that’s a great way to learn and develop passion for the game. It’s getting there (in the U.S.),” he said. “Coaching high school soccer is going to be a challenge. It will be different because during the high school season you practice every day, where as with academy teams you might practice twice a week, maybe three times. I’m looking forward to getting to our preseason program, and once the season starts we’ll definitely have more than one game per week. I know it’s going to be a challenge, but I’m looking forward to it.” A positive for Gorgiev as he gets going this summer is he’ll have a relatively young squad to work with and a team that features a lot of returning players, including all three goalkeepers as well as guys such as Gavin Paolone, Sean Kane, Emmett Kane
and Johnny Flammer. “As much pressure as I have on me, it’s more just excitement for me. I know one of the players who also plays for my team. I know they didn’t have a good season last fall, so we’re going to try to build the program. We want to get them ready and I want to see the options that I have (in preseason). If kids have passion and desire they are always welcome on my team,” Gorgiev said. “I have styles that I like to play, but I can’t make a decision on what kind of style we’ll be playing until I see what kind of kids we have. Once I find out what the potential of these players is, we’ll go from there. If we get positive results out of games, that will work. “I’m excited to meet the players and hopefully transfer my experience and knowledge to them. I really can’t wait to see what’s going to come out of this.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays
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GIRLS LACROSSE Primeau hopes to create own legacy Daughter of former Flyers great takes over at Holy Spirit By DAVE O’SULLIVAN Staff Writer oly Spirit High School has a new girls lacrosse coach whose last name is synonymous with ice hockey in the Philadelphia area. She’s hoping that with enough success she’ll have the Primeau name being mentioned in lacrosse circles, too. Kylie Primeau, a Bishop Eustace and Villanova graduate and also the daughter of former Philadelphia Flyers star Keith Primeau, was announced as the Spartans’ new girls lacrosse coach earlier this month by Athletic Director Steve Normane. Although she has no previous head coaching experience, Primeau brings plenty of lacrosse experience to the table. She was a standout at Bishop Eustace and then at Villanova before her playing career was cut short due to a concussion. “My career (at Villanova) was short as I had a concussion early on that pretty much ended my career. But I was part of the team for two years after that,” Primeau explained. “Just to be a part of the team and have the opportunity to experience collegiate lacrosse was pretty awesome. We made it to the Big East Championship one year, so that was pretty awesome.” Primeau graduated with dual degrees in economics and cultural studies, and the 25-year-old went straight into the business world working for a reusable box company in sales and operations. She began to get back into the game last summer, working some camps and clinics, and a more remoteworking schedule with her job and less travel has allowed her the opportunity
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Photo courtesy of Holy Spirit athletics
Kylie Primeau will be a rookie head coach this spring when she takes over the Holy Spirit girls lacrosse program, but she has plenty of experience, having played at Bishop Eustace High and Villanova University. to jump into the high school coaching ranks. “This past summer I was approached by a couple of lacrosse organizations to run some clinics and things like that, so I got back into the lacrosse world again and fell in love with the sport all over again. Through that, and living at the shore now full-time, and with not traveling as much for work because of
COVID, I was able to meet a lot more people, including people involved with Holy Spirit. They approached me and asked if I would be interested in coaching. I’ve already worked it out with my job to be able to coach, so I’m pretty excited,” she said. “There’s nothing really I’m nervous about. I think the challenge will be just to build the program, since it is a relatively new program.
And with every high school sport there are emotions involved, so I’ll do my best to be able to help mentor the girls and guide them in any way that I can, whether it’s lacrosse or school related, and go from there.” Primeau said she knows high school
See Primeau, page 19
Jan. 30, 2021 w Glory Days Magazine w Page 19 Primeau, from page 18 lacrosse is supposed to be fun — and she plans to make the 2021 season as fun as possible for the Spartans — but she also understands that winning is fun, and winning takes work. “The way I carry myself and the way my personality is, we want to have a great time — that’s what the game of lacrosse is all about — but at the end of the day we are there to work hard and win games,” Primeau said. “I’m going to make sure there are boundaries in place. I think being close in age to the players is going to be a benefit because I can relate to playing not so long ago. But I take very seriously what my job is, and I am their coach.” Last spring Holy Spirit had its season wiped out due to the coronavirus. In 2019 the Spartans were 6-11, a year after posting a 10-7 record. Typically, Spirit is a competitive team that attracts athletes from other sports, such as field hockey and soccer, and Primeau said she encourages athletes from any other sport to come out and give lacrosse a try. She, after all, was a soccer player who didn’t start playing lacrosse until just before high school, yet parlayed that experience
into a Division I roster spot. “Holy Spirit is a prestigious high school with some great sports teams and it’s great to be part of a school where it’s not just one sport that’s great. I love coaching athletes, even if they are not somebody who has been playing the game for a long time. I didn’t start until I was in eighth grade — I was actually a soccer player, playing that sport from the time I was 4 years old until I was a freshman in high school. I picked up a lacrosse stick and felt like it was my game,” she said. “Lacrosse is a great sport, even if you have no experience, if you’re an athlete you can pick it up. So that’s one thing I’m looking forward to as well, I love teaching the game and growing the game. I encourage anybody to come out for the team and I’m going to make sure (Normane) tells girls who have never played before to at least come out to our first meeting.” As for her famous last name, Primeau said she embraces the attention and certainly will use her father as a coaching resource, as he has extensive experience not only as an NHL player but as a coach following his playing career. “Obviously growing up, and even today, when peo-
ple hear my last name the first thing they ask is if I’m related to Keith Primeau. I’m very proud to have that last name and live up to the Primeau name, but I am my own person and I’ve always acted that way. I’m excited to help pave the way for the Primeau name in lacrosse and see where this journey takes me,” she said. “My dad was actually my first lacrosse coach and he coached my brothers in hockey the majority of their lives. He’s a great coach and has lots of advice to give, so I’m sure any guidance I need I’m sure I’ll be able to rely on him for some tips.” All Primeau can do now is wait and plan, as she said she’s chomping at the bit to get out there and get her prep coaching career started. “I’m ecstatic,” Primeau said. “I’ve been thinking about it every day since it was announced. I’m very eager and energetic to get going. The first day is going to be a roller coaster of emotions — looking forward to the season but also understanding we’re going to have to put the work in and do the things we need to do in order to be successful.” Contact Dave O’Sullivan: sully@acglorydays.com; on Twitter @GDsullysays