Greenwood Stadium Field Dedication

Benefactor Rick McQueary with 2010 Greenwood team and Alumni

The dedication ceremony for the newly christened Greenwood Field Stadium at the Cooper Soccer Complex went off under a beautiful blue sky complemented by the blue of the Greenwood Blue Jay faithful today. A large crowd was on hand to hear the dignitaries recognize the efforts of the community in bringing about the installation of the Astroturf surface that will now provide the Blue Jays with a true home field. The installation was made possible by donations from the Rick McQueary family and the Harry Cooper family.

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The inaugural Alumni game that followed saw the historic first goal scored by John McQueary, one of two sons of Rick and Mary McQueary and I believe the career scoring leader at Greenwood. His teammate, Thaylen Johnson (1999) also scored in the second half. Someone will have to update me on the final score which included a goal by the Varsity as the second half opened.

UPDATE – First Half scoring included goals by Alumni/John McQueary assisted by Thaylan Johnson
Second Half scoring included goals by Alumni/Thaylan Johnson assisted by John McQueary, Varsity/Stuart Beezley, Alumni/Thaylan Johnson again assisted by John McQueary and finally Varsity/Devon Whitlock.

Final: GLS Alumni – 3, GLS Varsity – 2

The event drew alumni from 1994 (Billy McQueary) to 2010 (Chris Algiere). I had the opportunity to chat with two of the early graduates, Blake Richards (1999) and Conor Haseltine (1996) about the early years. The video is below. The early years included a five year period (1993-1997) where the Blue Jays reached the State Final Four, when there were two divisions (Class 1-3 and Class 4). The Blue Jays returned in 2005 and that group was represented by Charles Albritton, Sam Chaffin, Brad and Matt Cook and Joe Seagrave in todays game. A complete list will be posted shortly and I’ll follow with a story next week on that group and the historic 23 game unbeaten streak that included coverage in Soccer America magazine, the voice of soccer at the time.

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Former MSU and Greenwood Lab School Soccer Coach Jan Stahle returned to coach his former Blue Jay soccer players as they played Head Coach Chris Shull’s Greenwood Varsity Team. The 1st Annual Alumni Soccer Game was held on Greenwood’s new synthetic turf home field at Cooper Soccer Complex Saturday, Aug 28.

The inaugural game on the new surface featured GLS alumni players representing 8 District Title teams and 6 State Final Four teams:

1993 (4th place),
1994 (3rd place),
1995 (2nd place),
1996 (2nd place),
1997 (2nd place) and
2005 ( 3rd place)

Roster GLS Soccer Alumni
Billy McQueary 1994
Conor Haseltine 1996
Ashley Dupree 1997
John McQueary 1998
Spencer Beezley 1999
Sam Blair 1999
Thaylan Johnson 1999
Chris Mullis 1999
Blake Richards 1999
Barrett Stanke 1999
Ross Van Velsor 1999
Justin Wolfe 1999
Noah Blair 2000
Scott Quinn 2000
Jay Brown 2002
Brandon Dupree 2003
Shane Algiere 2005
Ehren Schroeder 2005
Charles Albritton 2006
Sam Chaffin 2006
Cory Keith 2006
Rutger Thieme 2007
Brad Cook 2009
Matt Cook 2009
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