East Coast Florida Boys Soccer Senior Classic returns to DSC

After a two-year break because of the pandemic, the East Coast Boys Soccer Senior Classic returned to the Daytona State College Soccer Stadium on April 16.

The light team won the game 3-1. Seniors from Volusia and Flagler counties and Crescent City made up the teams.

Flagler Palm Coast's Myles Clymer scored the dark team's only goal.

Reggy Monsanto started the all-star game seven years ago with Rich Weber when they coached together at Matanzas High School. At the time, the only all-star option was the Florida Athletic Coaches Association's All-Star Classic, which limited participants and charged $150 per player, plus lodging, Monsanto said.

Monsanto and Weber decided to start a local game for seniors in 2015.

"It was a big hit," Monsanto said. "It gave more kids a chance to showcase their skills."

College coaches were invited and parents attended the game. In the third year, Daytona State College men's soccer coach Bart Sasnett attended the game at Matanzas High and asked if DSC could host the following year.

"That was wonderful," Monsanto said. "It was centralized, a bigger field, a college stadium."

DSC hosted the game for the third time this year.

"The game provides kids an opportunity they wouldn't normally have."

REGGY MONSANTO 

Forty-two players from FPC, Matanzas, Seabreeze, Spruce Creek, New Smyrna Beach, Atlantic, Pine Ridge, DeLand, Taylor, Deltona and Crescent City were on the two rosters this year. Each school is allowed to send four seniors to the game, and they are split up between the two teams.

"All the coaches buy in," Monsanto said. "It usually works out pretty good with a balance between positions. The game provides kids an opportunity they wouldn't normally have. Atlantic only won three games this year, but they were so excited to send three players to the all-star game."

Inter-United Palm Coast Soccer Club, run by Jim Powell, sponsored the game this year. Young players in the club walked out on the field with the all-stars at the beginning of the game and scrimmaged at halftime.