After back-to-back state championship appearances, the Lynnfield boys soccer team is about to embark on another season. Led by head coach Brent Munroe, the expectations may look a bit different this fall as the team graduated a large portion of its starting lineup from last year’s state finalist group.
Preseason begins Monday, Aug. 18, and while there’s plenty of turnover, Munroe said he’s looking forward to getting started with this year’s team.
“I’m always excited. It’s a fun time of year,” Munroe said. “Our group’s been playing in a summer league. They went up to Maine and participated in games up there.”
The Pioneers are coming off a run of historic success. They reached the Division 4 state final each of the last two seasons, winning the title two years ago before falling just short in 2024. Much of that success was driven by a core group of seniors who were multi-year starters.
“We lost a ton of talented players. The core of the group that went back-to-back to state finals was our senior class from last year,” Munroe said. “We lost seven of them who were starters since they were sophomores. That was the core of our group. We have a lot of younger kids and we’ll be a different team this year.”
Despite the roster shakeup, Lynnfield returns four starters and has a few experienced players ready to take on bigger roles. Leading the way is senior captain Rocco Scenna, an All-League and All-State selection who’s been starting since his freshman year.
“I think his strongest part of his game — it’s similar to a quarterback — he finds the best matchups and gets the ball out to them quickly,” Munroe said. “He did a fabulous job of that last year.”
Scenna will be joined by fellow captains Mohammed Ayari, the team’s returning holding midfielder, and senior defender Nate Zalvan. Along with Ben Clancy, Zalvan will shift from outside defender to center back this fall.
Munroe also expects Ollie Morgan and Brendan Reilly to make the leap from reserve roles into the starting lineup.
“Their time is now,” Munroe said. “They’ve been varsity players and would have played a big role on most of the teams we’ve had, but last year they were more reserve players.”
The goalie position is also wide open following the graduation of standout Kelan Cardinal. But Munroe was encouraged by the performance of both returning keepers during the team’s summer games in Maine.
“Both of our goalies who return from last year’s team — who hardly played because Kelan was our starter — both of them played excellently in the Maine tournament,” Munroe said. “They looked very solid. I’m not sure how it’ll shake out who’s going to be starting, but they both looked very good.”
