Staples High School, which has had as proud of a championship history as any boys’ soccer program in FCIAC history, had one of its greatest years in school history.
Led by superb defense and consistent team chemistry on offense, Staples won FCIAC and state Class LL tournaments with victories over an excellent Greenwich team in the finals of both postseason tournaments to highlight a very good boys soccer season for the FCIAC.
The Staples Wreckers finished with a 22-2 overall record; they avenged both of their losses in the FCIAC tournament when they won their conference record 28th FCIAC title, and then they captured the program’s 13th state championship under the guidance of first year coach Liam Witham.
Staples junior Adrian Rodriguez scored two goals to help lead the Wreckers to their 3-2 victory over Greenwich in the championship game of the 2025 FCIAC Boys Soccer Tournament at Fairfield Warde High School’s Tetreau/Davis Field on Oct. 27 when Staples captured its first conference crown since 2010.
Twenty days later the Wreckers won their first state title since 2009 with a 3-0 victory over Greenwich on Nov. 16 at Trinity Health Stadium in Hartford in the championship game of the 2025 Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference Class LL Boys Soccer Tournament.
Gabe Duque, Dylan Shackelford and Rodriguez each scored a goal for the champions while junior goalkeeper Jack D’Amore had several big saves to help the Wreckers register their 15th shutout of the season.
When defending FCIAC champion Greenwich rallied back from a two-goal deficit for a 4-3 victory at Staples on Sept. 16, that dropped the Wreckers to 5-2 and they had allowed eight goals in the season at that point.
The Wreckers would then allow just seven goals for the remainder of the season when they won 17 straight games the rest of the way.
The Stamford Black Knights defeated Staples, 3-1, on their home field at West Beach on Sept. 10.
Greenwich was only beaten by one team all year as coach Kurt Putnam’s 20-2 Cardinals got their only two losses in those finals of the FCIAC and Class LL state tournaments.
The Cardinals secured the top seed in the FCIAC tournament by racking up 45 points with their 15-0-0 record in the regular season, with teams being awarded three points for a win and one point for a tie.
Staples accumulated 39 points with its 13-2-0 record to get seeded No. 2 and Stamford (11-3-1, 34 points) was No. 3.
The five other FCIAC tourney teams were No. 4 Ridgefield (10-4-1, 31 points), No. 5 Darien (9-5-1, 28 points), No. 6 Danbury (8-6-1, 25 points), No. 7 Norwalk (7-6-2, 23 points), and No. 8 Fairfield Warde (7-7-1, 22 points).
A tiebreaker was utilized to determine that Fairfield Warde earned the last playoff berth as Brien McMahon and Wilton also had 22 points with their 7-7-1 conference records.
The Staples Wreckers first avenged their loss to Stamford with their 1-0 shutout victory in the FCIAC semifinals to set up their rematch with Greenwich.
In addition to the two goals Rodriguez scored in the first half of the 3-2 victory over Greenwich in the FCIAC final, Brendan Allen scored the other goal, and Duque had an assist for the Wreckers.
Matheus Bongiolo and Henry Davis each scored a goal while Manuel Bonilla and Nicholas Martschenko each had an assist for Greenwich.
The games in the Class LL state tournament indicated the strength and the balance of the FCIAC.
With the Staples Wreckers being seeded No. 4, they played in all five rounds in the tournament, so they had a 5-0 record and the FCIAC had a combined 12-9 record from its 10 qualifying teams.
Seven of those losses came against fellow conference teams, so the FCIAC had a combined 5-2 record in matchups against opponents not in the conference.
One example of the balance of the conference was that the Brien McMahon Senators were not among the eight teams in the FCIAC tournament, but they were seeded 25th in the Class LL state tourney and they shut out eighth-seeded Stamford, 1-0, in the first round.
Another example of the strength of the conference was Ridgefield being seeded No. 12 and the Tigers’ 4-2 victory over No. 5 Xavier advanced them to the Class LL quarterfinals, where they were eliminated by Staples, 2-0.
Greenwich drew a first-round bye as the No. 2 seed. The potent Cardinals outscored their first three state tournament opponents by a 19-3 margin, including their 4-1 semifinal victory over No. 6 South Windsor, before their 3-0 loss in the final to Staples.
There were 65 players who earned postseason honors from the conference. There were 23 players on both the 2025 All-FCIAC Boys Soccer First Team and the FCIAC All-West Division Team and 19 players on the FCIAC All-East Division Team.
Alexander Amato, Francisco Luzuriaga, Manuel Bonilla and Matheus Bongiolo of Greenwich; Josh Whitaker, Gabe Duque and Adrian Rodriguez of Staples; and Rory O’Halloran, Magnus Smail and Jared Relayze of Stamford were 10 of the selections on the All-FCIAC First Team as Greenwich led the way with four selections while Staples and Stamford had three apiece.
Greenwich’s senior forwards Luzuriaga (21 goals, 15 assists) and Amato (18 goals, 13 assists) were both later selected to the 2025 GametimeCT All-State Boys Soccer First Team and the 2025 Connecticut Boys Soccer Coaches Association Class LL All-State Team.
Bonilla, Greenwich’s senior midfielder, made the CBSCA Class LL All-State Team.
Whitaker made the GametimeCT All-State Second Team and was on the CBSCA Class LL All-State Team along with Duque, his Staples teammate.
Dylan Shackelford, a senior defender for Staples, was selected to the GametimeCT All-State First Team.
O’Halloran, Stamford’s senior forward, was chosen to the GametimeCT All-State Second Team and the CBSCA Class LL All-State Team.
The other 13 players who made the All-FCIAC First Team were Ronan Hanley and Jack Cerra of Ridgefield, Parker Skelton and Thomas Graziosa of Darien, Norwalk’s Tiago Morales, Trumbull’s Israel Vaz Costa, Wilton’s Liam Joy, Danbury’s John Salinas, St. Joseph’s Alexander Sari, Fairfield Ludlowe’s Sean Malecky, Brien McMahon’s Elihud Castillero-Gomez, Fairfield Warde’s Jack Hartley, and Westhill’s Steven Gomez.
Hanley, Ridgefield’s junior forward, made the GametimeCT All-State Second Team and the CBSCA Class LL All-State Team.
Skelton, Darien’s senior midfielder, was selected to the CBSCA Class LL All-State Team.
St. Joseph’s sophomore forward David Gomez was chosen to the CBSCA Class M All-State Team.
NOTES: Out of the 28 FCIAC championships which Staples has won, several times the Wreckers have been co-champions when the two finalists played to a tie in the championship game and consequently shared the conference crown. This year was the 20th time the Wreckers have won the FCIAC title outright and they have been co-champions eight times.
Brien McMahon has won 12 FCIAC championships for the second most. The Greenwich Cardinals copped their eighth conference crown in 2024, while Trumbull and Danbury are tied for the fourth most FCIAC titles with seven.
In two separate season-ending boys high school soccer polls released on the unitedsoccercoaches.org web site on Nov. 25, 2025, Staples was ranked No. 9 in the site’s National Poll and No. 1 in the Region I Poll which included teams from all six states in New England.