Talented Lower Merion squad captures first state cup win for veteran coach

Charlie Dodds isn’t a stranger to state cups or youth soccer in the Philadelphia area but it took a talented group of players determined to reframe the disappointment of a year ago as motivation for one final championship run to deliver the veteran coach his first state cup championship.

Lower Merion SC 007s lifted the U-19 Presidents Cup trophy on Sunday afternoon, holding off a late surge from PA Classics in a 2-1 victory. A year earlier at WSFS Bank Sportsplex they sent the U-17 final with Vereinigung Erzgebirge Mountaineers to extra time with a late equalizer but did so down two men after two players were sent off in the wild celebration of the equalizer. VE repeated in this year’s U-18 Presidents Cup final with a 2-0 win on Saturday but the 007s added some new players and moved up to the U-19 age group, facing off Sunday against PA Classics.

“It was a very strange ending to the game,” recalled Andrew Laudenbach of the 2024 final. “It was a roller coaster of emotions in those last couple of minutes and in the end it was disappointing.”

Their journey back to the final had the makings of a revenge tour with lopsided score lines in the three games leading to the final. They outscored opponents 23-0 in those games and grabbed a first half lead on Sunday with two first half goals.

But in that way that anything can and so often does happen in cup finals, the momentum shifted late in PA Classics’ favor.

“It was kind of a here we go again moment,” Dodds said of the Classics’ goal.

Dodds, who is assisted by coach Matt Kane, was appearing in his third Eastern Pennsylvania state cup final with the team and his sixth as a coach. On the high school side, Dodds led West Chester East boys – where he continues to coach – to a PIAA state final in 2003 they lost to Upper St. Clair.

“It’s a great group of kids and a phenomenal group of parents,” Dodds said of his team, which now gets a chance to play in the Eastern Presidents Cup against regional competition in Plymouth Meeting next month. “These kids and parents stayed together and are a team in the truest sense of the word.”

Midfielder Jude Sacks was part of the 007s team when they lost the U-10 Challenge Cup final as elementary school kids and is one of three players on the team who were part of a PIAA Class A state title Delaware County Christian School won in 2023. Knights seniors Ben Norbury and Cam Vavala were new additions to the team this year and each assisted on the goals Sunday.

“Ben and Cam are my brothers from another mother and we’ve been through so much together playing all these years and seeing each other in school every day,” Sacks said. “Having them on the field with me is just a different level of trust.”

The ties from high school to different eras of their youth development and to the emotions that come with previous losses cascaded on Sunday into a lively celebration, from the field when they scored their goals on the Delaware River side of the field to the final whistle and the nearby stage in the shadow of Subaru Park  collecting their trophy and placing the Lower Merion SC logo on the board of champions.

“It’s just such a great achievement to think about how far we’ve come in the four years I’ve been with the team and how far we’ve come even from last year,” said Laudenbach, who is also playing this summer for WC Predators in NPSL and is heading to Dickinson in the fall. “I’m glad we finally got over the hump and we get to keep this going.”

The Eastern Presidents Cup will be played June 13-17 with tickets to the National Presidents Cup up for grabs.

 

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