No slowing down for Palm Harbor U. boys soccer

After two straight trips to the state title game and four in the past five years, 2010-11 looked like it may be a year for the Palm Harbor University boys soccer team to take a step back. Not so much a miss-the-playoffs step back, but area foes certainly wouldn't mind to at least see an ebb in such annual domination.

Six of the Hurricanes' championship-game starters last season - including leading scorer and current USF Bull Ben Sweat - were gone to graduation as the new season began, and a number of relatively inexperienced players were slotted to be big-time contributors.

So far the result has been a little less relieving than others had been hopefully anticipating. PHU, as of Monday, sits at 12-1-2 and has the look of a serious contender that continues to improve. The Hurricanes have outscored their opponents 27-0 over the past seven games.

Defender Brandon Shaneyfelt is one of the six current seniors on the Hurricanes' roster and said it has taken a little time for the team to mesh, but that ongoing process is progressing nicely.

"Going into the season we knew that we had a lot of new players, so it was going to take a little while to get used to everybody and playing together," said Shaneyfelt. "The first couple games we faced adversity at times but we pulled it together and now we're starting to play as a team."

Fourth-year head coach Alex Delgado dittoed much of what his senior co-captain said in terms of needing some actual game time to see what a young team is going to turn into. But he also said that expecting much less than the best is not standard practice for one of the state's elite high school soccer programs.

"To be a realist, it's very hard to judge what type of production you're going to get from a young team." he said. "I went into the season, though, still setting our goals high like always because we never want to be holding ourselves back."

While the results - i.e. winning way, way more than losing - have been more or less identical to years past, the way PHU is earning those victories has been quite different. Sweat, perhaps Pinellas County's most impactful player during his years in a Hurricanes uniform, was the team's clear-cut focal point. Now, Delgado said, PHU is playing with more of the field and scoring is coming from a wider array of players.

"Last year's team was very oriented around Ben. Ben was the leader, our guy we looked to in every situation. This year it's a very all- around team. We have experience in the back which is excellent with the three-back system we play."

The staggering all-around contribution PHU has received this year is evident when looking at the team's scoring spread. Twenty-two of the 30 non-goalkeepers on the Hurricanes' roster have scored or assisted on a goal. Sophomore midfielder Cody Sitton currently leads the charge with 10 goals, followed by Robert Sennabaum and Charlie Hales with six each. Sennabaum paces the team with nine assists.

The leadership in the back from guys like Shaneyfelt and co-captain Corey Cox has paid dividends for the Hurricanes in a number of fashions, such as helping aid in the development of freshman midfielder Jacob Carson. "He's going to be a big time player," Delgado said of the frosh. "He's almost 6-foot as a freshman and he plays in front of the three seniors. It's great because those guys really help the boy out. He wins everything in the air for us and he's there as a physical player."

Perhaps epitomizing the key efforts given by relative unknowns is first-year junior Kiril Dimsv. "When we get on a bigger field, we are really hard to take the ball away from and it really starts with him," Delgado said. "He is the guy that paints the picture for us. First year, no experience playing at the high school level and he's been the one holding it down in the middle of the field."

With the regular season essentially at its midpoint and PHU beginning to look like, well, PHU, sophomore co-captain Jesse Caron said other teams' perhaps lowered expectations for the Hurricanes hasn't really been that much of a driving force. This year's motivation was already in place since Feb. 20.

"I just think last year, losing on PK's, that's instant motivation," he said of PHU's 2-1 (PK, 3-2) championship-game loss to Boca Raton. "We don't need to think about anything else."

Truly atoning for last year's slip-up at the University of Tampa's Pepin Field can only be accomplished one way - by bringing the hardware back to Palm Harbor. Getting that far every year isn't something that PHU arrogantly expects, but it is what the Hurricanes expect to be capable of.

"Every year I'm asked about how far we'll go and like I said every year, we're going to go as far as we want to go," Delgado said. "I never put our team out there and say we're just going to get through districts. I believe we are good enough to get back to the final four. I'm not scared to say it, but it's just something that these boys have to go out and do."

"As long as we stay healthy and keep getting better every game, the sky is the limit for this team."