North by northwest

Downcounty schools no longer have monopoly on high-level soccer

Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2006

Click here to enlarge this photo file photo In years past, when western upcounty teams like Northwest and current senior Nirav Kadam (left) met up with western downcounty teams like Whitman, the results were predictable. But while the balance of power hasn’t exactly shifted, the upcounty teams are gaining ground in a hurry.

There’s no signpost, but the line could hardly be more clear. The five downcounty boys soccer powers — Bethesda-Chevy Chase, Churchill, Walter Johnson, Whitman and Wootton — have combined for 20 state and 51 regional titles. Meanwhile, Damascus, Gaithersburg, Northwest, Seneca Valley and Watkins Mill have zero state titles among them, and just two regional championships.

‘‘I’ve always, for the most part, had some very good players,” said Kert Mease, the boys varsity soccer coach for all of Northwest’s eight previous years of existence. ‘‘But the gap between our top and bottom players has always been very significant.”

Things changed last year, seemingly overnight. Montgomery County schools won four regional championships in boys soccer, and the ‘‘downcounty five” had none.

Sherwood and Magruder, which draw from the soccer-friendly Olney area, were hardly newcomers to the state tournament. But the other two regional champs came from the northwestern part of the county. Poolesville won its second straight 1A West Region tournament, and fourth overall. The bigger surprise was Seneca Valley, which beat three Montgomery County opponents on the way to the 3A West Region championship, the first ever for the northern part of the county above the 2A level.

What’s more, the county’s top regular-season team was just down the road at Watkins Mill. The Wolverines appear to be contenders again this fall, while Northwest — which has just one winning season in program history — is loaded with high-level club players. Senior Nirav Kadam and junior Mark Jaskolski are each coming off appearances at the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championships.

So has the balance of power in the county shifted? Is this the dawn of a new boys soccer pecking order?

‘‘Bethesda will always be strong,” said Jeremy Spoales, who took Paint Branch to the 3A West Region final last season before leaving to start the boys soccer program at Clarksburg. ‘‘But it happens in waves. One of the reasons I came up here was that the community is so involved in their sports. They’re really branching out; it’s not just football any more.”

This fall, the same old teams still make the list of preseason favorites — B-CC, Churchill, Walter Johnson, Magruder, Sherwood, Whitman and Wootton all have very strong squads coming back. The difference is that the list of teams that could win it all is longer than it ever has been. Teams from Gaithersburg, Germantown and Damascus are pushovers no longer.

‘‘The difference now is that I could put a starting 11 out there that’s all basically high-level club players,” Mease said. ‘‘I was actually a little concerned for the future to a degree after this class, because we’d be graduating so many quality players. But we ended up getting five really good freshmen and a sophomore coming in.”

The growth of soccer in northwestern Montgomery County is actually fairly easy to explain. It stems from the growth of three other areas — the sport in general, the area in general and the popularity of club soccer.

The area’s top two clubs, the Potomac Soccer Association and Bethesda Soccer Club, are located in the county’s high-rent district, where the majority of their respective player pools has tended to reside. But there are enough youth soccer players around the county that other clubs are growing in strength. Most also offer financial assistance to reduce fees for less wealthy, but no less talented, players.

‘‘We do have club players coming into the Germantown area,” Seneca Valley coach Festus George said. ‘‘Before this started happening, too, you had more of the Hispanic community there that didn’t know about the club level. You have a lot of good players from that community, but clubs are now starting to reach out to them and let them know about the opportunities.”

The population boom in the upper reaches of the county has helped, as well. Northwest not only grew into a 4A school within eight years of opening, it has already had to expand its building to accommodate students from the housing developments springing up all over the area. Some of the new residents were bound to be soccer players.

‘‘I’m in my 20s, and I can remember coming up to Germantown when I was in my early teens, and there being nothing there,” Spoales said. ‘‘My aunt lived in Clopper Mill, and it was like going to Pennsylvania. Now Germantown is one of the largest cities in Maryland.”

Clarksburg, the third new high school to open in the area in less than 20 years, is further evidence. It’s not just the county’s growing immigrant population; many county residents are simply moving farther up I-270, where prices are lower and congestion is less — for now.

‘‘We had more freshmen try out this year than any year since I’ve been coaching here,” Damascus coach Jim Dow said. ‘‘It’s becoming a more popular sport, but also, people are moving away from the hustle and bustle and bringing the sport with them.”

The sport itself has also experienced a boom recently. Soccer has been popular among young athletes in this country for years. But with all-soccer cable and satellite television channels springing up, and the United States qualifying for the World Cup every four years, the sport isn’t just for the minivan-and-orange-wedge set any more.

To a large extent, football still reigns in the once-rural northwestern part of the county. But as the area becomes more cosmopolitan, soccer has carved out a niche for itself, as well. And the line between north and south, when it comes to success in boys soccer, blurs a little more each year.