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New Canaan Rams Boys Soccer Preview: Team Spirit, Cohesion and Chemistry

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Coming off a season that included a spectacular upset, 3-0 victory over No. 3 seed Platt Tech in the opening round of the state tournament, the program’s first win in the CIAC tourney since 2011, the Rams boys varsity soccer team is eager to get back on the pitch in 2015 and fight to go even further. Leading them in that fight are the team’s three senior captains—goalkeeper Griffin Paterson, center-midfielder Brett Capone, and left/right forward Jack Dinnie—each of whom “can really play,” third-year head coach Rich Sutherland told NewCanaanite.com. “Griffin, our goalkeeper, has been a standout the last couple years, which is great. Brett’s basically been ever-present on this team since he was a freshman, so he’s been there, seen it and done it now for the last three years—certainly leads off the field as well,” Sutherland said.

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New Canaan Girls Soccer Preview: Veteran ‘NC Feet’ Squad Ready to Strike

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For New Canaan High School varsity girls soccer head coach Kirk Bamford, entering his seventh season at the team’s helm, two major strengths of the 2015 squad are experience and leadership. The team has 17 returning players, “all of whom are capable of contributing,” Bamford told NewCanaanite.com. “We have our four captains who are instrumental to the team, along with the other seniors, 10 of whom [in total] are back from last year. It’s a great group, very experienced with a great attitude.” Those four senior captains are midfielder Sami Stewart, defenders Mia Carroll and Caroline Gordon, and goalkeeper Katie Donovan—a quartet with more than a decade of experience playing together, which bodes well for the 2015 Rams squad.

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Launched: Dedicated Website for All New Canaan High School Soccer Teams Goes Live

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New Canaan High School soccer can claim many of the accolades and plusses associated with celebrated varsity programs such as football and lacrosse: strong coaches, integrated youth organization, beautiful fields to practice and play, championships, pedigree, scores of alumni and even All-Americans. For Nick Williams—known to many as a selectman, but also a soccer dad who has coached Rec and whose three kids all played in the New Canaan Soccer Association, with one son now on junior varsity and one playing varsity (tri-captain Chase)—one important piece still has been missing for the wider NCHS soccer family, on all levels, boy and girls both, is a continuously updated website. “I think it’s time has come,” Williams, the driving force behind the new NCHS Soccer website, ncramsoccer.com, said on a recent afternoon from the sideline at Conner Field during a New Canaan-Norwalk match. “This is a World Cup year. A lot of interest in soccer.

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Rising Senior Re-Laces Cleats for NCHS Soccer Season

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The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Baskin-Robbins, Connecticut Sandwich Co., Joe’s Pizza and Mackenzie’s. Although rising senior Ryan Callahan hasn’t played soccer in a formal setting for more than six years, it didn’t stop him from giving the sport his best shot at the high school level for the first time. Having played rec soccer before moving to Texas for a few years, Callahan said that his interest in the sport was piqued again recently by three to four pick up soccer games a week with friends over the summer. “I played here in the rec league as an elementary schooler. And I played it at the YMCA up until 6th grade in my town in Highland Park, Texas,” he said.