High School sports by Nate Lull
Tri-Valley League soccer
gets exciting as playoffs approach

It’s hard to believe but Oct. 16, is right around the corner. It’s a day I like to call “Soccer Saturday” as the Tri-Valley, Delaware and MAC leagues all hold their conference championship games at the Wright National Soccer Campus fields in Oneonta.

It is a great way to see some of the top teams from our area all in one location. Let’s take a look at how things are shaping up in the TVL as I am writing this Oct. 4.

TVL Girls:
Schenevus sits atop the league with an 8-0 record. The Dragons survived two big tests last week against Milford and Franklin. The most intriguing game was the SCS vs FCS matchup. Franklin jumped out early on the Dragons and seventh-grade phenom Shannon Kingsbury finished with four goals on the day. I think it showed everyone there are local teams that can compete with Schenevus. The problem is the Dragons have a ton of firepower. They managed to put up seven goals on a good Franklin team.

Finding a way to slow down the Dragons high powered, balanced offense must be keeping local coaches up at night.

Franklin sits in second place at 5-1-1 and Milford is in third with a record of 5-1-2.

Don’t look now but Laurens has been great in taking league wins over Milford and CV-S. The Leopards are tied for fourth place with Morris and are looking to make a push during these last two weeks.

TVL Boys:
Franklin/Unatego remains in first place on the boys side with a record of 6-0 and 10-1-1 overall. They grabbed a nice non-league 2-1 win over Norwich on Saturday. Matt Serrao leads the league in goals (20) and assists (10). But it isn’t just Serrao that makes this team go. Franklin/Unatego has been getting contributions from Brandon Gregory, Chase Birdsall, Braeden Johnson and seventh grader Jacob Kingsbury, among others.

Milford/Laurens is in second place at 5-1. M/L gave Delaware League powerhouse Margaretville all they could handle in a 3-2 loss over the weekend.

After that it is a battle between Edmeston, Worcester, CV-S and Schenevus to see who will get the other top playoff spot. We should see some exciting action this week as many of these teams meet up with playoff implications on the line.

No matter who makes it to “Soccer Saturday” on the 16th, I hope you will consider getting out and watching these great teams play. All three leagues have some great talent that will be on display. Some other teams local fans might want to see are the Greene boys, Unatego girls, Margaretville boys, Roxbury girls and South Kortright boys. It’s well worth the price of admission to see these games in person.

Nate Lull is the sports director for WCDO in Sidney.