{"id":40839,"date":"2016-02-16T13:07:58","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T18:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=40839"},"modified":"2016-02-16T16:08:39","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T21:08:39","slug":"pdl-pioneers-anticipating-familiar-faces-for-2016-squad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/?p=40839","title":{"rendered":"PDL: Pioneers Anticipating ‘Familiar Faces’ for 2016 Squad"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo

Photo credit: David Henry\/sweetdogphotos.com<\/p><\/div>\n

The Western Mass Pioneers may have adopted a new shield during the offseaso<\/a>n, but some of the\u00a0players who’ll be wearing it this summer should be familiar to its\u00a0supporters if all goes according to plan.<\/p>\n

Last week, Pioneers general manager Greg Kolodziey spoke about the upcoming PDL season, one which he and coach Federico Molinari are hoping will bring greater fortune than its predecessor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very excited to start our 19th season,” Kolodziey said in a club release. \u201cCoach Federico and I are busy assembling a team that will compete for a playoff spot. I can\u2019t say names yet until contracts are signed, but there will be familiar faces suiting up this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pioneers finished at the bottom of the Northeast Division standings on 11 points in 2015. During the winter, Kolodziey promised that the team would rebound in 2016 under the direction of Molinari, who briefly relinquished the reins to coach the club’s former ASL side, Western Mass Pro Soccer.<\/p>\n

Among those familiar faces could be former PDL leading scorer Alencar Junior, who told NESoccerToday.com<\/em> in December<\/a> that he was eyeing a return to Ludlow, Mass. for the summer.<\/p>\n

Kolodziey’s team will make its 2016 debut on May 7 against Seacoast United Phantoms in New Hampshire before returning to opening its home fixture list at historic Lusitano Stadium on May 22 against New Jersey-based outfit F.A. Euro.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Western Mass GM Greg Kolodziey expects to see some familiar faces suit up for the Pioneers this summer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35317,"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":[84],"tags":[1291,892,1294],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nesoccertoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Pioneers-1.png?fit=600%2C414","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40839"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40839"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40839\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40844,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40839\/revisions\/40844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/35317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/nesoccertoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}