A few weeks ago, after the Smithtown BU14 Arsenal had won the Region I Championship and stamped their ticket to
Nationals, LIJSoccer.com caught up with coach and trainer Tom Lipps. While the excitement of the tournament win hadn’t completely worn off, getting the boys motivated and focused on the next step in the journey was paramount to their success down the road.
“The boys are extremely excited, but we were having a tough time trying to get them motivated to start training,” said Lipps. “They’ve been going hard since January, and I think the tough thing is once you get through State Cup you think, “Ah, we got there.” Then you have to get motivated to go through Regionals, and that tournament is a little different, because if you advance, a 3-4 day trip can turn into a 5-6 day trip. With all the showcasing, with all the training, and all the development they go through during the course of the year, a trip after a regional is very tough to get motivated for.”
So Lipps worked at trying to make the boys understand how impressive their accomplishment was, and how this was an opportunity that they should savor.
“I don’t think they recognized the impact of what they’d done,” Lipps said. “I don’t think they realized where they are from a soccer standpoint. I don’t think they truly understand how hard it is to get to a national championship tournament, especially as a town team, which is really what we are. We have 18 on the roster now, and 13 of them are Smithtown kids.
“When I was growing up, it was common to have a very good town team,” he continued. “But it’s a different thing now. Everybody is playing on these hand-picked academy squads, so this is a big accomplishment. It just adds to the impact they are making as a team.”
One thing that will impact the players is the heat in Phoenix, AZ, site of the Nationals, this time of year. That was point that wasn’t lost on Lipps.
“We’ve been trying to simulate playing in heat, so we trained during the hottest part of the day, at 2 pm on the turf,” he said. “Those first couple weeks after Regionals were a rough time for them. They were very quiet. They weren’t laughing a lot. They just didn’t yet understand how important it wass for them to be training and getting the bulk of the work in two and half weeks before they left so they would have time to recover and taper off towards the end.”
The team left today for the west coast, and the coach feels good about where they are physically and mentally.
“We have had some signs of laughter, some camaraderie stuff more recently. They were a little more social again, so I think we’re in a good place. I just want them to enjoy the experience.”