Nine impact players return to defending Group 4 champs
Introducing the 2023 Shore Girls Soccer Preseason Top 30 rankings. We start with a look at No. 1 Freehold Township. The full Top 30 is below the story.
Dave Patterson still remembers when he began coaching the Freehold Township girls soccer team. He was with the girls on the sideline and they were talking about boys and braiding each other’s hair. He was out of his element, he thought.
“I wasn’t sure what I was in for, but as soon as they stepped over the line, and I saw them go out and compete…it wasn’t much of an adjustment,” Patterson said. “They are all high-level players and they want to win.”
Do they ever.
The defending state Group 4 champions are intent on dominating again this fall. They bring back nine of last year’s impact players and, overall, there’s just a whole lot of talent on the squad.
“I always go into the season expecting to compete in the championship. A lot of things have to go right between now and then,” Patterson said. “We have to be healthy, we have to make sure everyone is buying in, and we have to get a little bit of luck along the way and we have to be playing good soccer at that point.”
Patterson, a former Freehold Township player himself, believes the girls keep the program elevated by passing the torch, with upperclassmen leading by example.
“They come out here with their talent, and our job as coaches is to continue to put them in position to be successful. They put the work in. They are out there training on their own and doing work on the track. They want to be successful,” he said.
Success at the end of last season came via a goal by Ainsley Moy, who’s making an argument to be considered as one of the best players the program has ever had, according to Patterson. The Texas Christian University commit had the lone goal in the Group 4 title game against Ridgewood - the Patriots’ third state title in program history.
“Last year we were just so upset from the year before, and that motivated us,”
SARAH BLOOM