Three high school soccer players with Haddonfield roots have achieved what they called the biggest honor in their athletic careers.
Jack Dugan, Sam DeCencio and Gabriel DaSilva were all part of a club team called Match Fit Academy FC U16 Black. The team won the U.S. Club Soccer 2016 national championship in the boys’ U16 super group division. Match Fit Academy won the final game last Monday against Marin FC, a team from Colorado.
Dugan and DeCencio are both rising juniors who were captains on the Match Fit Academy team and will be captains for Haddonfield Memorial High School boys’ soccer team this fall. DaSilva is a rising sophomore who was a key player for Delran High School boys’ soccer last year and has played with Haddonfield’s club program in the past. All three players have had great moments at the high school level, but they felt the national championship with Match Fit Academy has topped them all.
“It hit me right away,” DaSilva said of the championship. “My heart froze up. It was just amazing.”
Match Fit Academy’s teams consist of some of the best players from New Jersey and the Philadelphia region. The teams Match Fit Academy played during the regional and national tournaments were equally as competitive. Most of the teams had future Division I college players, and some players on opposing teams had professional contracts with Major League Soccer development programs.
Match Fit Academy’s season was a series of ups and downs. The team played outstanding during the summer, but prior to tournament season, was on a downward slide.
“We were struggling,” Dugan said. “We lost five or six straight games.”
“We had a little bit of a losing streak,” DeCencio said. “We were playing good teams and we couldn’t score.”
Match Fit Academy FC U16 Black head coach Luke Tyler said the team was able to buckle down late in the season and regain its focus.
“We just got back down to working much harder,” Tyler said. “We did things a little more simpler and began to believe in ourselves.”
The team won 10 consecutive games to end the year. The first five came in the Mid-Atlantic regional, allowing Match Fit Academy to qualify for nationals. The team went 3–0 in pool play at nationals and finished the year with wins in the semifinals and national championship game. In the national championship game, Match Fit Academy came back from being down, 1–0, to win, 2–1.
Dugan said Tyler did a good job of keeping the team focused in the final game.
“Even when we were down, he kept us calm. He knew when to push us,” he said.
Tyler said all three players were key to the team’s national championship run.
“Jack is a tough, hard-working kid,” Tyler said. “He can play in many positions, he can score goals. Sammy was one of our key players in the midfield, he’s very good with the ball and a very smart soccer player. Gabe is one of the best forwards in the region. He’s big, strong and powerful. He did a good job of keeping the ball for us and scoring some key goals.”
This season was the second year the players on the Match Fit Academy team were together. DeCencio and Dugan felt the team’s chemistry was critical to its national title run.
“We all just became better friends and had better chemistry together,” DeCencio said.
“We played together last year and this year we played together once the high school season ended,” Dugan said. “So we have a lot of experience together.”
All three players are gearing up for the high school season with practice just a couple weeks away. For Dugan and DeCencio, they will be captains at the high school level for the first time. Tyler believes the two will have success moving forward after their experience with Match Fit Academy.
“There was a lot of responsibility on them,” Tyler said of his two captains. “They were role models to the rest of the group.”
