Athletics

big blue highlights

left: Opening the season with four straight wins for the first time in over two decades and outscoring opponents 136–20 in the process, Pingry Football had a season to remember, including six First Team All-Conference selections en route to an impressive 6–3 record. right : Coed Water Polo enjoyed a winning season under new husband-and-wife coaching duo Granger Abuhoff (Head Coach) and Nicolle Jasbon (Assistant Coach), who guided the team to its first victory over Lawrenceville in five years in the Round Robin stage of the Garden State Tournament. Peter Youssef ’22 and John Grissinger ’23 each scored twice in the memorable 8–6 win. Girls’ Cross Country enjoyed a successful season that included a first-place team finish in the small-school division of the 2021 Stewart Memorial Invitational, where all seven Pingry student-athletes placed in the top 20. Olivia Murray ’24 competed in the Tournament of Champions after her top 10 finish at the NJSIAA group championships. Alexandra Ouzounian ’23 and Morgan Dwyer ’25 each scored 17 goals in a memorable Field Hockey season that included a stunning overtime upset of conference champions North Hunterdon in October.

Andrew Vilarin ’24 of the Boys’ Cross Country Team finished in the top 20 of nearly 100 runners at the 2021 Somerset Country Championships, with four of his teammates also finishing in the top 50.

Athletics

big blue highlights

Boys’ Soccer remained unbeaten through 19 games of their outstanding 2021 campaign, capturing their first outright Somerset County Tournament Championship in five years and picking up a milestone 900th victory under Head Coach Miller Bugliari ’52, P ’86, ’90, ’97, GP ’20, ’24. Seen here, the team celebrates with each other and with fans after the County victory. In one of the most dominant seasons in the history of Pingry Girls’ Tennis, the 2021 squad was crowned NJSIAA Non-Public North A Champions, Prep A Champions, and Somerset County Tournament Champions, finishing 7–0 in their conference and 16–1 overall. Leila Souayah ’25 and Isabelle Chen ’25 won the state doubles championship—Pingry’s first since 2006.

Girls’ Soccer defeated Paramus Catholic 2–0 to advance to the quarterfinal round of the NJSIAA tournament. Both goals were scored by Nubia Gooding ’23, who was assisted each time by Greta Pew ’24.

Athletics

q &a with michael carr ’16

Former Standout Football Player Finds His Stride in Coaching

Michael Carr ‘16 coaching at Middlebury College this past fall.

When Michael Carr ’16 joined Pingry’s Middle School Football team as a basketball-loving seventh-grade student, he didn’t realize that his new sport would end up being the focal point of his athletics career and would also afford him his first professional opportunity out of college. Mr. Carr quickly became a standout student-athlete at Pingry—a four-year letter winner in football and track & field, team captain, All-Conference selection, and Skyland Conference Scholar-Athlete. But perhaps most indicative of Mr. Carr’s attributes on and off the field is being the recipient of the 2016 Tom Boyer Football Award, which recognizes the “Pingry football player who best embodies the values of and commitment to the sport of football, and demonstrates strength of character, courage on the field, and devotion to his teammates.”

After graduating from Pingry, Mr. Carr took his talents to Vermont to play for Division III football powerhouse Middlebury College and became an All-Conference selection on their NESCAC (New England Small College Athletic Conference) championship team in 2019. It was Middlebury’s first undefeated season (9-0) since 1972. It’s not surprising that, immediately after he graduated from Middlebury, the college offered Mr. Carr a position with the football team as a Wide Receivers coach. And much like his seventh-grade self, he is finding a new passion for football, this time on the coaching side, and he looks forward to sharing his invaluable knowledge and experience with future generations of student-athletes.

What did you learn from being a Pingry student-athlete? Being a Pingry student-athlete taught me a lot of things, mostly how to manage my time and balance being a threesport athlete (football, spring track, winter track) with the academic rigor of Pingry, putting me in a position to succeed in college. You have a lot of free time in college, and Pingry taught me how to make the most of that time.

What advice do you have for young student-athletes looking to play football? Take advantage of the resources available at Pingry. Specifically, with football, take advantage of the strength and conditioning program that we have. Coach Doug Scott was so instrumental. To be honest, I don’t think I took as much advantage as I should have, but once I got to college, I ramped it up. It’s difficult when you’re 13 or 14 to realize how much spending an hour or two in the weight room will boost your game, especially when you just want to hang with your friends, sit on the couches, go to the vending machines. You eventually realize the long-term effects it has on your career. If I had to do it all over, that’s something that I’d do—spend a lot more time getting faster, getting stronger, realizing sacrifices are made and it’ll pay off.

What attributes do you emphasize as important to your student-athletes? One of the biggest things I emphasize is “competing.” At Pingry, we didn’t always have a great win/loss record, but I always took pride in showing up for every game 100 percent expecting a good outcome, giving it everything I had, and being a true competitor and giving max effort no matter what the score was. That’s the main message to the guys I coach. The other message is about being a great teammate. Coach Shilts talked about it a lot. His adage is, “The most important guy on the field is the guy next to you.” That’s something I definitely took away from my time at Pingry. Football is the ultimate team sport, and it’s not always about who’s the biggest, fastest, or strongest. It’s, “which group of players can really play as a team?”

What kind of coach are you? Do you have a coaching philosophy? Being such a young coach, other than teaching the importance of always competing and being a great teammate, I’m still developing my coaching style and still learning a lot each day. Because I’m so close to the age of a lot of the guys who are playing, and I played in the same program, I’m really empathetic to what they’re going through. Last season, about half the guys on the team had played with me, and they had seen the successes I had on the individual level, so I had their respect established. Less than half of coaching is about the Xs and Os—it’s mainly about getting the most out of each guy and knowing their personality. Listening is one of the most important things in coaching. Each player isn’t going to learn the same way, each player isn’t going to be receptive to the same thing. So, if I can’t listen, I can’t coach each guy the way they need to be coached. One advantage of being a Wide Receivers coach [as a former player whose position was to defend wide receivers] is that I’m able to speak from experience and tell them, “This is how I’d defend and cover you.” Any player will try to absorb that direct experiential knowledge.

What’s next? I’m not looking too far ahead because I want to enjoy what I’m doing right now. It’s not for the money. So far, I found a lot of happiness in coaching. I didn’t know at all that coaching was where I’d end up out of college. I told people that maybe I’d like to end up in sports psychology because I thought that’s something they’d want to hear based on the education I had received (Psychology major). The future for me is to continue to do what I love. At this level, there’s so much to be involved in: I’m coaching positional groups, I’m recruiting in a lot of states, helping call plays during the game—just so involved in everything from building the team and who we bring in to how they develop over the years. Being so young and being able to be involved in so much is really fun to me. So, as long as I enjoy coaching, I’ll continue to do it. Down the road, I’d like to get closer to home in New Jersey. [The five-hour drive to Middlebury] isn’t that bad, but I’m used to being 15-30 minutes away from family. Having said that, I’m in no rush to leave Middlebury. This place is a second home to me. As long as I’m growing and enjoying what I’m doing, I’ll be here.