{"id":17844,"date":"2013-01-23T10:22:05","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T15:22:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=17844"},"modified":"2013-01-23T10:22:05","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T15:22:05","slug":"spring-is-in-the-air","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=17844","title":{"rendered":"Spring is in the Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Pioneers1\"<\/a>
\nLUDLOW, Mass. – With the temperatures dropping and a new turf field at Lusitano Stadium set for installation, the Western Mass Pioneers held their first open tryouts indoors earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Dozens of\u00a0aspiring pros, plus\u00a0a number of players from last year\u2019s squad, participated in the club’s first tryout of the calendar year.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a relatively young team last year and a lot of them have expressed interest in coming back and playing another season,\u201d\u00a0said Pioneers General Manager Greg Kolodziey. \u201cThat\u2019s definitely encouraging.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Premier Development League (USL)\u00a0franchise recently held tryouts in both \u201cSoccer City,\u201d an indoor complex across the Chicopee River from their Ludlow, MA headquarters, and \u201cSports World,\u201d the tremendous training dome visible from I-91 in East Windsor, CT.<\/p>\n

During both tryouts, a handful of veteran Pioneers from 2012\u2019s 3rd place squad (6-4-6) appeared alongside the dozens of new players looking to keep active before college soccer starts up again in the fall.<\/p>\n

Among the players looking to make a\u00a0PDL team for the first time was Mike Fisher, a lifelong Pioneers fan and product of the club\u2019s recently-acquired Western United youth system.<\/p>\n

\u201cI grew up going to the games and following the team,\u201d said the Babson College midfielder\/forward. \u201cI played in Western United (youth system) my whole life. My team\u2019s been to the state finals many times and Western United and the Pioneers recently merged. Then I played for the Pioneers U-20 team. That was a great experience and now I want to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a good time for Fisher to\u00a0return to the Ludlow-based club. Three years ago, the club voluntarily dropped down from\u00a0the now-dissolved USL-2\u00a0to PDL.\u00a0The transition\u00a0wasn’t as smooth as expected, with the club finishing sixth in the Northeast Division in 2010. But thanks to a dedicated core of\u00a0supporters and\u00a0an improved product\u00a0on the field, the\u00a0Pioneers are\u00a0looking strong on\u00a0multiple fronts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe as an organization\u2026we\u2019re ninth in the whole country for attendance,\u201d Kolodziey observed while watching the tryout squads make themselves known. \u201cThe average was just over a 1,000 fans a game. We have a very good fan base and Lusitano Field\u2019s a hot place for soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going into 2013, some concern lies in the potential loss of U.S. Men\u2019s U-20 goalkeeper, Warren Gross. At the time of the Western Mass tryouts, Kolodziey\u00a0said that Gross was eyeing a\u00a0team closer to\u00a0the summit\u00a0of the American soccer pyramid.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a great worker and he might be heading to a higher level,”\u00a0Kolodziey said.\u00a0“Which is what this league\u2019s all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

Goals were sparse for Western Mass last year (1.13 goals per game), but with Gross leading the PDL in shutouts (9 in a 16-game season) and a\u00a0solid set of defenders in front of him, the team remained in the playoff hunt\u00a0until a late string of ties and crucial loss against GPS Portland Phoenix resigned them to\u00a0third place in the final standings.<\/p>\n

Still,\u00a0with the 2013 season on the horizon,\u00a0the Pioneers have only one objective:\u00a0improve upon last year\u2019s solid showing. And it all\u00a0begins with the first tryout of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Even with temperatures dipping below the freezing mark, the Western Mass Pioneers were thinking spring at a recent club-sponsored player tryout.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[91],"tags":[221,246,1294],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17844"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17844"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17844\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17867,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17844\/revisions\/17867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}