Wesleyan Christian Academy was No. 3 in the NSCAA and MaxPreps rankings last season, and has some big names to replace. But will it equal a drop in the rankings, or will the Trojans just reload as they have done before?
Photo by Alyson Boyer Rode
You don't have to look far or wide to realize where soccer success starts at
Wesleyan Christian Academy (High Point, N.C.).
Eleventh-year coach
Scott Reitnour played for and served as captain on three nationally ranked teams at Houghton College during his collegiate playing career. He later served as an assistant coach on successful teams at Houghton and Alfred University.
Drew Mostoller
Photo by Alyson Boyer Rode
Today he not only leads one of the top boys fall soccer teams in the nation at Wesleyan Christian, but coaches a United Soccer League Premier Development League side during the summer, the Southern West Virginia King's Warriors, of Beckley, W.Va.
See all the 2013 Fall Soccer Early ContendersThe 2013 fall season should bring more of the same type of success for Reitnour and Wesleyan Christian, which went undefeated and untied last year in winning its second-straight North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association 3A title. It finished No. 3 in both the MaxPreps national computer rankings and the National Soccer Coaches Association of America poll, and is one of 10 fall boys teams to be honored as a national title Early Contender, presented by adidas and Dick's Sporting Goods.
Reitnour, who has twice been named NSCAA South Region Coach of the Year, has to replace seven starters from last season's 25-0 team, 15 players in all. But midfielders
Drew Mostoller and
Kirby Robbins, plus goalkeeper
Connor Bell, lead a veterans group that has only known championships and success during its tenure at Wesleyan Christian. Eight players will be called from a sub-varsity team that also went undefeated last fall.
It's no coincidence that Reitnour coaches in a USL development league during the summer. Premier development is part of the tradition he's helped inspire over the past decade at Wesleyan Christian.
See the entire Wesleyan Christian Academy photo galleryLocal outlook: ”The Wes Trojans have an outstanding boys soccer program that the Triad area of North Carolina can be proud of. Over the years, they've turned out some super players, including Jamath Shoffner (played some pro and coached college soccer), Aaron Tooley (personal soccer trainer), Robert Tucker, Robbie Hicks, Dennis Hanlin and others. I coached at least three of those guys back on the youth level and they were smart and good even then."
- Andy Durham, GreensboroSports.com (@gsosports)
