Entering a new season in any high school sport, there are usually a handful of teams with first-year head coaches. For IAC boys soccer, only one team in the league went through a coaching change: Newfield.
Kyle Sicke takes over the Trojans’ program. If that name rings a bell to any Ithaca College soccer fans, it should. Sicke played for the Bombers as a midfielder from 2018 to 2022. He came to Newfield last year as a physical education teacher. When Jake Kozlowski stepped down, Sicke felt it was an easy decision to dive into the coaching realm.
“As a PE teacher, they ask you to coach if there’s some openings, so I jumped on the opportunity, and I’m loving it,” Sicke said. “I think I’m definitely gonna try to keep coaching for a while if I can. I’m just really excited to keep learning and seeing where this job takes me and seeing the guys grow and how this season unfolds and everything.”
Sicke isn’t the only young Bomber leading a Trojan team. Andrew Mendel, currently a senior on the Ithaca College football team, took over the boys basketball team last year, becoming the youngest varsity basketball coach in New York State at 20 years old. Like Mendel, Sicke believes being closer in age to his players is an advantage.
“It makes me more relatable to students and athletes,” Sicke said. “I can use that as teaching. Sometimes I’ll show them some things and they’re like, ‘Oh, I can listen to this guy because he’s been there, he’s done that, he still has some skills himself.’ I think they almost listen to us a little bit more. Sometimes I hop in [during practice] and they enjoy that, too.”
The Trojans had a solid campaign last time they took the pitch. They posted a 7-6-1 record and qualified for the Section IV Class D tournament before getting knocked out by Morris in the quarterfinals. With a younger roster this fall, Sicke sees plenty of potential in producing an exciting style of soccer for years to come.
“I think they have the ability if they just get the confidence and practice to keep the ball, put the ball on the ground, and play a nice brand of soccer,” Sicke said. “I’ve been trying to instill that in them a little bit as well, because I think sometimes for a lot of them, their first instinct might be to boot it or clear it, so we’ve been working on that. It might come with some hiccups or mistakes, but over the next few years, [we] build that culture and that kind of idea, then we’ll start to play some really good soccer and hopefully make some real noise and do some really good things.”
The only returning IAC All-Star from last year is Henry Tompkins. He earned that honor as only a freshman and will be deployed in a new position this season, transitioning from a defender to a center midfielder.
“Henry’s an absolute stud,” Sicke said. “He just absolutely loves the game. He’s always playing, always learning. He still is a little bit quiet. He still has confidence. He knows he’s good, but I still think if he gets even that little bit more confidence, we can get even more out of him because he’s just such a good player.”
While Tompkins is more of a quiet leader, junior center back Sawyer Aidun is more of the vocal leader for the Trojans.
“He’s a big presence,” Sicke said. “He’s a big kid. He’s a great athlete. Baseball is his main sport, but he also plays basketball. He knows sports and he has that confidence. He comes in and he knows how to lead a team the right way, keep guys accountable, say the right things. He’s been a leader in that respect, and he’s also an important player for us.”
One important hole that Newfield will need to fill is in goal. Brookes Rainbow, who was the Trojans’ starting goalkeeper the last two seasons, is playing football this fall. They’ll turn to sophomore Blake Harris in his first year at the varsity level.
Other players to watch out for are sophomore center midfielder Reuben Ramsey, junior midfielder Chase McLean (a transfer from New Hampshire), sophomore center back Logan Tillotson, junior fullbacks Bracen Watros and Phoenix Dishmon, freshman outside midfielder Pierre Hardison, sophomore outside midfielder Cody Mushatt, junior outside midfielder Cameron Rainbow, and striker Keegan Manheim (the only senior on the team who’s back after not playing last year).
If the Trojans want to make it back to sectionals and make a deeper run in the Class D tournament with a younger and smaller squad, taking care of their bodies is the number one priority to achieve their goals.
“We got to be smart at what we do in practice in such that we get stuff out of it, but we’re not killing them in anything,” Sicke said. “I think that’s going to be really important throughout this year to balance that, and then hopefully if we stay healthy, we can do some really cool things this year.”
