By Matt Stout
Staff Writer

Cawley’s Max Yee (right), with teamate Andrew Kafagelis, heads in a goal at Raymond. (The Hooksett Banner/Matt Stout)

Greg Shaw has just one complaint about his David R. Cawley Middle School boys soccer team: it’s a second-half team, one that’s “been very slow out of the gate.” That’s if you consider three halftime leads of one or two goals “slow.”

So are the expectations around Cawley, a perennial soccer power in the Tri-County League that bowed in the Class M championship game last season and is once again built for a run at the title.

Led by three-year players David Scarpetti at sweeper; Erik Shaw at center midfielder and Taylor Sargent at stopper ­ three of 12 returnees and 10 eighth graders ­ Cawley enters its game against Litchfield on Thursday, Sept. 21, at 3-0, fresh off a 3-2 win over St. Joseph’s of Manchester, “our first real challenge” this season, Greg Shaw said.

Thus far in 2006, Cawley has disposed of Boynton Middle School of New Ipswich, 6-1, Raymond by a score of 8-1, and most recently, St. Joe’s, taking first-half leads of 2-0, 2-1 and 1-0, respectively, before exploding for multiple goals in the latter frame.

Against Raymond on Sept. 13, Cawley put the game away with four scores in the first 10 minutes of the second half.

“I like the quick-touches, short-passing kind of attack,” said Greg Shaw, in his first year as head coach. “I like to attack up the sides and drive up the middle or lob it over the defense and go for breakaways. Either way, we can score goals.”

Buoyed by a strong core of midfielders that includes eighth-grader Max Yee, seventh-grader Taylor Raney and midfielder/strikers Shaw and seventh-grader Andrew Kafagelis, Cawley has broken the one- or two-scorer mold that has driven teams of the past, Greg Shaw said.

The balance could prove crucial when Cawley continues its string of tough match-ups with Litchfield and, later, Hampstead, the team that dethroned Cawley last season. But the team isn’t all offense.

Scarpetti and Sargent lead a defense Greg Shaw said he built his team around. Eighth-grader Kris Roller and seventh-grader Scott Bernard round out Cawley’s back four, while sixth-grade goalie Chris Moquin mans the net.

Combined with a number of promising sixth-graders, including Tyler Gahara, Austin Sprague and Rick Prindiville, and returning seventh-graders Marc Lyscars and Jon Goubout, Cawley has long built upon the tradition established in Hooksett’s strong travel soccer program.

There, players start as early as 5 and 6 years old, playing on 3-foot by 3-foot nets set up on softball fields. Before they enter high school, they usually end up with a class title.

“We have a lot of talent on this team,” Greg Shaw said, “and if I can get them focused on playing as a team instead of as a group of individuals, I told the boys that they can run the gamut. But it’s up to them.”