By Garth Shanklin
Sports Editor
A familiar face will be roaming the sidelines at Holman Stadium this fall.
Erik Poggi, an assistant boys soccer and basketball coach in the district this year, was named the new head boys soccer coach at a board meeting on Monday, March 15.
“It’s exciting,” Poggi said. “It’s one of those things I never thought I would do again, but the opportunity presented itself and I couldn’t pass it up.”
Batavia athletic director Matt Blandin praised Poggi’s skill in building a program in a statement emailed to The Sun.
“In our interview process, Erik continued to rise to the top in his communication skills, planning, and passion for the development of a K-12 soccer program for Batavia schools and community. We are excited about his previous experience at Kings and Amelia in building programs, and his familiarity with the Batavia community.”
Poggi started his coaching career at Amelia High School. After two years as an assistant coach, he took over the program for one season.
The same job then opened up at Kings High School, Poggi’s alma mater. He returned to Kings and served as the Knights’ head coach for 11 years.
Poggi has spent the past two seasons as an assistant at Batavia. Now as the Bulldogs’ head coach, he has goals involving the Batavia Community Recreation League and a possible junior high team down the road.
“We have to start from the ground up,” Poggi said. “We have to start when the kids are young. We don’t have a lot of kids that play club soccer out here. They play through BCRL and they play through youth sports. My dream is to be heavily involved in that league.”
Poggi continued, noting the importance of building the team from the lower grade levels through the varsity program.
“This isn’t just grades nine through 12,” Poggi said. “We have a lot of kids. We have current eighth graders that played BCRL. The more we can get involved, the better we can build the program down the line.”
Poggi started a junior high team during his tenure at Kings, and he hopes to do something similar at Batavia down the road.
In terms of the varsity squad, Poggi has some things he hopes to address on the field.
“Watching us the past two years, I have some thoughts about where I want to take this,” Poggi said. “We need to get better defensively all over the field. We were giving up way too many goals.”
Poggi also acknowledged the Bulldogs’ offense needed some improvement as well.
“We didn’t score a lot of goals either,” Poggi said. “We need to be able to put together a possession-oriented type of soccer where we can defend and also build all the way out and put the ball in the back of the net.”
The 2021 boys soccer season can begin as early as Friday, August 13, 2021 with Friday Night Futbol. The timing of that event was moved up a week due to changes in the football schedule resulting in an earlier start to that season.