Sutton Middle School wins Metro Atlanta Soccer League title

For the third consecutive year, the Sutton Middle School boys’ soccer team captured the Metro Atlanta Soccer League title. Just as impressively, the team cruised to a 15-0 season after almost doubling the number of games from last year’s 9-1 championship season. The Cougars outscored opponents 76-8 and dominated in all but a handful of games, shutting out all three of their opponents in the playoffs including a 2-0 win over Decatur’s Renfroe Middle School in the championship game.

Here head coach Jay Bland explains how co-captains Daniel Adelman, Joshua Uribe and Ivan Ramirez helped lead the team to the title, and how vital they’ll be as eighth-graders helping out North Atlanta High‘s junior-varsity team when it begins action in February. Bland needs their help; he also coaches North Atlanta High’s varsity team, and after losing nine seniors from last year’s team, depth will be a concern. “The whole plan is to have players move all way through the ranks, play for me until they are seniors, and watch them graduate and hopefully go to college,” explained Bland, who works with JV head coach Michael Slack at North Atlanta High.

We also enjoyed talking to the three co-captains about how they juggle athletics with academics, because as Adelman pointed out, if you don’t keep up good grades, you don’t play!

Sutton Middle wins boys soccer city championship

Congratulations are in order for the Sutton Middle School boys soccer team, which captured the city championship last week in winning the Metro Atlanta Athletics Conference. Head coach Jacob Bland, who also is the head coach of the the North Atlanta High boys varsity team, was extremely proud of a team that finished the season with a 9-1 record.

Interestingly, the only loss came against the Atlanta International School 5-4.  They got their revenge, though, in the championship game with a 2-0 win.

“As the season progressed, the boys became more of a team, outscoring opponents 29-6,” said Bland, who just completed his fourth season as head coach. ”Sutton’s large Hispanic community contributed to the majority of the team, with an ecletic mix of other nationalities.”

Many of the players will continue on to North Atlanta High School to continue playing for Bland. He was particularly proud of this year’s team, as he noted in a recent interview:

We had immediate success when I entered the program. We’ve been to the championship every year, winning it last year as well, so its a bit of a dynasty. I’m very proud of the boys as I’ve seen them mature every year. The sixth-graders are not allowed to play sports at Sutton, so the team consisted of only seventh- and eighth-graders. I remember the sixth-graders a few years back being so anxious to get out and play, and their day finally came. The two goals were scored by seventh-graders, which is also a good sign of what is to come.
Coming into the season, I didn’t think that we were going to be the best team to pass through Sutton, but the boys really changed my mind. With hard work ethic, and good performance in school, they taught me as much as I taught them. We practiced five days a week for two months to prepare and really showed dividends.

There’s an awesome little video clip of the championship game posted on Sutton’s Web site, which you can view here.