Defending state champ Princess Anne boys soccer team has found its groove

VIRGINIA BEACH — The Princess Anne boys soccer team didn’t look much like a defending state champion early this season.

But after fighting through some early adversity, the Cavaliers have come together, won nine consecutive games and look like title contenders once again.

Princess Anne, now 11-3-1 on the season, is heating up at the perfect time, with the Region 5A playoffs starting next week. The Cavaliers will have a shot at extending their win streak to 10 games Thursday night in their regular-season finale against Western Branch.

“We’re trying to get better every week,” head coach Sonny Travis said. “That’s been our main objective. We feel like we’re playing pretty good soccer right now and we still have to keep going.”

The Cavaliers started off the year 2-0-1 with wins over Tabb and Lafayette, but ran into a buzzsaw of a three-game slate the week after spring break.

Travis’ squad lost consecutive games to Landstown, Cox and First Colonial — some of the best teams the Beach District and Hampton Roads have to offer.

The rain kept Princess Anne, who is without a turf field, indoors for most of the preseason, Travis said. Combine that with losing eight seniors from last year’s state title team and you have a squad that hadn’t fully come together yet.

“Cox got rescheduled to that week and that was a tough blow because we hit three of the toughest teams we would probably have on the schedule (in one week),” Travis said. “I do think (the losing streak) was a combination of factors. One was we had so much rain in the preseason that we were indoors for all of preseason. We lost both of our scrimmages to rainouts. So our team didn’t have time to come together.”

Following the string of losses, Travis said the team held a meeting and adopted a “one-game mentality,” and has worked extremely hard ever since.

“Nobody wants losses, but I think what it did is it woke our guys up,” Travis said. “I think that coming in as state champions, they were feeling the pressure. Everybody knew, it wasn’t stated, but everybody knew we were gonna get everyone’s best game. I think after those three losses, that’s when we realized that, hey, we have a lot of work to do and we can’t look back on the past, we have to make our own future. The team is resilient and they’ve come through.”

Princess Anne has been led by juniors Kishin Togashi and Maciej Majcherczyk — who Travis said are player of the year candidates — during its win streak and throughout the season. A supporting cast of players like seniors Will Jennings, Ian Mulcahy, Hernan Nisperos as well as sophomore Josiah Roberts has been crucial to helping “elevate” the attack and defensive intensity.

Majcherczyk and Roberts are the Cavaliers’ leading scorers with nine and eight goals, respectively. Princess Anne has outscored its opponents 47-5 during the past nine games and is outscoring opponents 53-12 for the season.

Travis feels like his team is playing its best soccer “to this point” and that there are still things the Cavaliers can work on as the season concludes. As for what it’s going to take for Princess Anne to make a run at defending its state title, it boils down to one word: focus.

“We talk about that quite a bit because if you make a mistake in elimination games, it could cost you your season,” Travis said. “We’ve concentrated on that and team play. Those sound like clichés, but the reality is we have to be clicking on all cylinders. But if we are, I think we can beat anybody.”

Michael Sauls, (757) 803-5774, michael.sauls@virginiamedia.com