Former Valley player Carlisle will coach Vikings boys soccer team, which returns this fall

By: Michael Love
Sunday, August 6, 2023 | 6:36 PM

Ben Carlisle is no stranger to the experience of representing the Valley boys soccer team. He enjoyed a standout career with the Vikings before graduating in 2015.

For the past several seasons as a coach with the Valley junior high co-ed program, he has shared the frustration of not having a boys team at the varsity or junior varsity level.

But that is soon to change.

The numbers in grades nine and up are sufficient, Carlisle said, to restart the team.

“We’re looking at about 13 to 15 guys right now, and that is a pretty significant thing,” said Carlisle, who will serve as the coach this fall.

Carlisle, who went on to play at Pitt-Greensburg, said the interest in the team restart came about over the summer.

“Working with the junior high program over the past three years, I was able to help build that program up a little bit,” he said. “There were just enough boys playing, and there’s always been enough for a girls team. At the beginning of the summer, I was continuing to have the junior high job, but then Kim Johnson, the athletic director, reached out to me, not even two weeks ago, and said that the new girls (varsity) coach, John Banko, was doing summer workouts, and there were enough guys there for a boys team. She asked if I was interested in moving up a spot, and I said absolutely.”

Carlisle said the boys had a good idea there would be enough players, and excitement was building to restart the program.

“They just didn’t know if it could become official,” said Carlisle, a youth program director at the Valley Points YMCA in New Kensington. “Seeing what we had over the past couple of years, I thought this might be possible.”

Carlisle said the team will be made up mostly of freshman and sophomores with one or two upperclassmen, possibly seniors who were freshmen on the last varsity and JV team in 2020.

“It will be relatively young guys,” Carlisle said.

Carlisle said last year’s freshmen were not able to play games with the junior high, but they attended practices.

“They were getting in reps. They just weren’t able to play in games,” he said.

Because this is the second year of a two-year varsity cycle in the WPIAL, Valley most likely will play an independent schedule before regaining its full status, which includes a section schedule and eligibility for the WPIAL playoffs.

“We hope to put together a pretty nice schedule where the guys can face some good competition,” Carlisle said. “We probably won’t play a full varsity schedule. We hope to play a number of local teams, mostly at a JV schedule, but it will be our varsity team. It will all depend on the school.”

Carlisle said there is strong talent among the boys group, and he said he saw that over the past couple of weeks as it continued summer co-ed workouts.

“It’s nice that these boys have come from what you would consider a feeder program at the junior high,” Carlisle said. “They were able to learn the game more without it being at that extremely high level. These guys have two or three years of decent experience. That will be a positive for the team moving forward.

“These guys love this. They were really bummed out to not be able to have a team. It was a great feeling to tell them that the team could form and that we will have a schedule. They just want to play. They’ve worked hard over the past couple of years, and they deserve this opportunity.”

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

Tags: Valley