By Andy Walter

CAMDEN — Fourteen seasons had passed since the last time Caesar Rodney High failed to make the DIAA boys’ soccer state tournament.

And just two years before, the Riders had reached the Division I state finals.
So missing the tourney last fall despite a 9-6 record wasn’t easy for CR’s players.

“It was sickening,” said senior co-captain Trevor Sullivan. “It was like a punch in the gut.”

“It was an eye-opening,” agreed Craig Dixon, another senior co-captain. “It just makes you want to work even harder this year. You don’t want that same result.”

With the goal of making their state tournament absence an aberration, the Riders opened preseason practice on Monday.

Aside from the football programs that started last week, Monday was the first day that fall sports programs around the state could get practice underway.
CR, which has a solid group of returning players, opens the season on Sept. 5 at Wilmington Charter.

The thing that made last year so difficult for the Riders to swallow was the fact that they were probably among the best teams in the state by the time the season ended.

After an 0-3 start, CR won nine of its last 12 games. The Riders blanked eventual Division I state runnerup Cape Henlopen, 4-0, and lost to the two state champions, Cape Henlopen (2-1) and Sussex Academy (1-0) by just one goal each.

Five of CR’s six losses came by only one goal.

Craig Dixon, a senior co-captain for the Riders, made second-team All-Henlopen North a year ago. DAILY STATE NEWS FILE PHOTO

They had been a combined 28-6-1 in the two previous seasons.

“I think the boys were a little too caught up in that (trying to go back to the state finals), rather than focused on the task at hand,” said Lavender. “I think these guys are going to be a little more focused on the task at hand. ... and not looking too far ahead.

“You sometimes have to take a step back to take a step forward. That’s sports. Things don’t always go the way they should. Soccer can be one of the cruelest because you can have the ball for 80 percent of the game but something happens and the other team gets the goal.

“Hopefully it was a learning opportunity for the boys,” he said about last season.

The Riders have a good nucleus of returning players to work with.

Sullivan was a state Top XI player for CR last fall while Dixon and goalie Logan Simmons both made second-team All-Henlopen North. In addition, the Riders got back two players — Axel Jackson and goalie Graham Parsons — who played on a MLS Next club last fall and weren’t permitted to suit up for CR.

Lavender said the players worked especially hard in the off-season. He believes CR has a lot of depth this season.

“We’ve been going at it for a while now,” said Lavender. “I know what I have. These boys have been ready for this just as soon as last season was done.”

The players know this is their chance to get the program back among the top teams in the state. They also know they’ve got to hit the ground running.

After last season’s 0-3 start, they ended up missing the state tournament by just a slim margin in the tourney points system.

“I feel like we’ve always got to work hard if we want to achieve what we want to achieve,” said Dixon. “This team, we’ve got very high expectations for ourselves.

“As seniors, since it’s our last year, we want to go out with a bang. We’ve got to start strong. We can’t have the same 0-3 start. We need to start 3-0 and give us a little energy and confidence.”.

“Our season starts right now,” Sullivan said on Monday. “We’ve got a scrimmage this Friday (at Appoquinimink) and we make cuts Wednesday. We start going right from the jump.

“We were 0-3 to start the season (last year). I think that put our heads down a little bit. Instead of starting the season really well and having a lot of confidence going, it wasn’t a good start.

“Every single game is a championship for us.”

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