It was an admittedly difficult season for the Salisbury boys soccer team.

The team finished 3-13-1 overall, but when you look a little deeper, there are some signs that point to the potential for better times ahead.

There were some miscues along the way that allowed teams to steal opportunities for wins from Salisbury. In addition, there were three games where the Falcons lost by just one goal.

Fixing some of the holes and learning how to win those tight games could help lead Salisbury to respectability in the not distant future.

The team had senior leadership from Jude Fitzgerald, Efstratios Hiotis, Gerrit Kloosterman, Bradley Lopez, and Christian Marinos, who all played important roles in both their junior and senior seasons.

While the Falcons had 14 different players earning points during the season Marinos stood out and was the leading scorer and finished his high school career with 25 goals and eight assists.

“The seniors were the backbone of the team,” said Falcon head coach Barry Frick. “It took younger players some time to adapt to the speed and the physical play at the varsity level, but they adapted and were better in the second half of the season. Those players stepped into bigger roles and were able to better handle the rigors of the game as they continued to develop.”

Junior Julian Makhoul now has two varsity seasons under his belt as the team’s goalie and will return for this senior season to anchor the defensive unit. Makhoul has turned himself into one of the tougher goalies in the area and has taken on a role as a team leader defensively.

Classmates Jeandy Lantigua-Batista, Thomas Pojanowski, and Brian Soita all stepped up for coach Frick in the 2025 season.

“Those guys are going to need to play a bigger role next year for us to be successful,” said Frick. “But they worked hard this year, so I expect the same moving forward from them. They are all poised to have strong senior seasons.”

Sophomore Daziel Galindo-Gomez was able to help the team as he continues to develop and will be a bigger part of next season’s team.

“We also had some freshmen play important minutes and even start games for us this season, and they made a lot of progress,” noted Fritch. “They’ll be fun to watch develop over the rest of their careers.”

Like every other coach, Frick has a to-do list for the offseason. Some of that includes changes in training regimens and continuing to play in the Lehigh Valley Summer League to help develop players and team chemistry.

“Going into the offseason we want to continue to work on fitness and strength aspects of our game<’ he said. “We had an overall deficit in that area, and we need to close that gap. We have a new strength coach coming to Salisbury High School so we will take advantage of that as part of our offseason program soon.

“The other aspect of the offseason is checking in with the boys in school and seeing how they are doing academically and with their lives in general. This is very important for our program and fits our long-term goals of preparing them for life after high school.”