Here is our group for the upcoming North American Open Cup. We play each team once, top 4 advance.
Player Departure
DC Jamie Marrow leaves Wake Forest for league rival Blacksburg Bears. Marrow was going to start for us and this is a pretty big blow.
With the recent departure of DC Steve Groves, this now leaves us with 4 central defenders in our organization. 16 y/o Garry Garcia and 15 y/o Joe Pickering will attempt to fill in for Marrow. We will immediately begin searching for a new DC, for depth/injury insurance if nothing else.
Marrow was also the team's Vice Captain (our other starting DC Galvis is captain). I select AMR Ian Cooper as my new vice captain.
New Signing
We quickly find a new DC.
27 y/o Tommy Lassiter is leaving the NC Fusion reserves (one tier up) to get the chance to start for Wake Forest.
Heading 8/Marking 5/Tackling 10
Composure 4/Concentration 6/Decisions 4/Determination 4/Positioning 6
Jumping 9/Str 11
Lassiter is equal or better than the other defenders we had as backups and will likely get a lot of playing time, very posssibly becoming our second starter. Lassiter also has the advantage of being able to play fullback on either side adequately.
He is also nowhere near match fit and will be playing with the reserves probably for a few weeks.
Player Departure
AMR Gary Martin has followed Jamie Marrow to the Blacksburg Bears. Martin has been featured prominently in our friendlies and was not going to start but was going to get a ton of playing time.
AMR is a position where we have significant depth and Ryan Crook will step in as the backup (and likely in full rotation) with youngster starter Ian Cooper.
Some good news on the player movement front, DMC Brian Williams was offered a position with a higher tier club, North Meck SC, and turned them down. He's one of our key starters in what should be a pretty solid defense, relative to our level of course. I was very worried about losing him.