By SPENCER BATES
ALLEGANY — While it may have been a full 282 days since their appearance in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) Class C Final, the Allegany-Limestone boys soccer team seems to have picked up right where it left off.
In their 2025 season opener, the Gators pummeled Chautauqua Lake in the second game of the Gator Cup, a tournament which they host, by a score of 8-0.
“We wanted to make sure we were doing things right tonight,” A-L head coach Jon Luce said. “It didn’t matter who the opponent was. But, I thought we moved the ball well, which was nice. The stuff that we’re working on is progressively coming along. Obviously, the first game of the year, no matter how good your team’s going to be, the nerves are going. We just wanted to get that first game out of the way, and I thought the boys were playing well together. … I was very appreciative of the work that they put in tonight.”
It was all Gators, all night and star midfielder Cooper Wilczewski was at the center of it all, as he, fittingly, got the home side off the mark for the season. Just three minutes into the affair, Wilczewski fired a free kick on net from just shy of 40 yards out, a shot that left the Chautauqua Lake goalkeeper with little chance.
Wilczewski left his fingerprints all over the game after that point as well, playing nearly every minute of the game and acting as the anchor to an A-L team that has seen some significant roster changes ahead of this season. He scored once more in the game, another rocket from distance in the first half, and provided an assist on the final goal of Mat Burnett’s first half-hattrick.
Having been called up as an eighth-grader, Wilczewski is now in his fifth year with the A-L varsity team. And according to Luce, he will need to use that experience to be the calm, collected figure the rest of his teammates can look up to this season.
“He’s very comfortable with the ball, which is nice, he doesn’t get panicked,” Luce said. “It doesn’t matter how many guys are on him. He’s very under control and calm. When he does have the ball on his feet, he’s got great vision, so he can find those outlets quickly. It’s also nice being on the team for five years now. … Now he is the elder player on the field, he has to be that way. He has to be that calm kid for the rest of the team, and they’re all looking up to him to be that way.”
Allegany-Limestone’s Cooper Wilczewski (10) shields the ball from a Chautauqua Lake defender. Wilczewski scored twice and provided an assist for the Gators in their win over the Eagles. (Derek Gumtow)
Burnett finished with four goals on the night, netting the eighth and final goal with just four minutes left to play. Kaleb Reed scored twice in the second half to round out the goals for the Gators. These are just some of the names that are being asked to step up in a big way for A-L this season. With the departures the team had after last season, Luce noted it is going to need to be a team effort on the field every given night.
Of course, they will have Wilczewski to ground them and not all of their starters from last season wound up leaving, but leadership is not a given.
“It’s going to have to be a collective effort,” Luce said. “Obviously, graduating the group that we did last year, we had a lot of leadership on the team. So, it’s new guys finding their way into the team. New leaders got to step up, we still have some returning starters, so they’ll continue to be there, but we got to have more guys step up, replacing those guys who graduated last year.”
A-L has another game in their Gator Cup and two more non-league games after that before league play starts. After such a positive start to the year, Luce is challenging his players not to fall complacent, but to continue to grow after every game, big win or not.
“We just want to see a positive build from each game on top of each other,” Luce said. “It took us last year, until probably midway through the season before we started hitting our strides. So it’s taking things from each game and just building upon those. So, the things that we did correctly tonight, they have to be second nature in their next game. But we need to build the things that we didn’t do correctly, and hopefully it continues to fall forward until we get to the middle part of our season, where it’s very competitive. Hopefully by then, with getting these non-league games out of the way, we can go forward on a really strong, positive foot.”
The Gators will play again on Aug. 30 at 12 p.m.
