A.J. Stueck couldn’t even look his teammates in the eyes.
The Brookfield boys soccer players sat together in a circle– smack-dab in the middle of the field at Municipal Stadium in Waterbury — for the most painful 20 minutes of their lives.
Bobcats coach Jared Sheikh mustered up some words of wisdom, but Stueck, even to this day, can’t remember a single thing Sheikh said.
“I was just so lost in my own mind,” said Stueck, an All-American striker who scored 40 goals as a senior.
It was halftime of the Class L state championship against New Canaan.
And the Bobcats trailed 2-0.
This was not how it was supposed to end.
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A.J. Stueck, ranked No. 6 on The News-Times’ list of the top 25 area athletes in the Class of 2010, wasn’t at Brookfield High because he had to be.
He was there because he chose to be.
When Stueck was in eighth grade, he and his friend, Brian Grisell, tried out for the “Olympic Developmental Program,” something that Stueck wasn’t too familiar with at the time.
But after scoring seven goals in one game during the tryout, Stueck became real familiar, real fast.
He made the U-14 National Team.
Free cleats, free Nike apparel, free flights around the world for tournaments.
Delaware for a week, Spain for two weeks, then to California.
“It was very much a professional atmosphere,” Stueck said.
Makes sense, because Stueck was essentially being groomed to become a professional.
At the end of the U-15 season, the ODP would select 30 players for “residency” with the U.S. National Team.
Anyone who earns residency, Stueck says, has a choice of going to any college in the country or turning pro right away.
And if he didn’t make residency, Stueck had several prep schools — South Kent and Shattuck-Saint Mary’s in Faribault, Minn. (one of the nation’s top prep schools for soccer) — knocking on his door.
“It’s basically a lock for college,” said Brookfield senior Luke Niarhos.
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A.J. Stueck was the “B,” he recalls.
Niarhos, Matt Bonn, Grisell, Jackson Isaacs and Eric McKean (with one more friend) were other letters that, together, formed “B-O-B-C-A-T-S.”
This was tradition for Stueck and his buddies — then students at Whisconier Middle School in Brookfield.
Every time the Brookfield High soccer team played Newtown, Stueck and Co. painted their chests for the game. And they never missed a varsity game, no matter what.
“If Brookfield had a state game at 2 p.m.,” Stueck says. “We’d be taken out of school early to go watch it.”
The Bobcats, though nothing more than an average South-West Conference team, were Stueck’s heroes.
He could recite the entire starting lineup — and still can to this day.
Playing for Brookfield High was his dream.
“We all couldn’t wait to get on that stage,” Niarhos said. “But A.J. was the most excited. He’d always talk about how that could be him out there.”
He talk about it all the time, not just when they were in the stands.
This group of six did everything together — family vacations, sleep-overs, movies, video games and, of course, Whisconier soccer, where they were the cream of the crop in the middle school division.
“We were beating up on the other schools,” Niarhos said. “I’m talking like 10 goals a game. We began — maybe in seventh grade — to realize that if we all played in high school together, we had the chance to do something special.”
Or, in other words, reverse years of mediocrity and deliver Brookfield High its first-ever state championship.
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When he was in eighth grade — and a member of the U-14 national team —-A.J. Stueck was often approached by strangers at Brookfield High basketball games (he also was a big fan of other Bobcats sports) who grilled him about his future.
“Are you going to South Kent?”
“Are you going to Minnesota?”
Believe it or not, he even heard, “Are you going to Newtown?” — a rumor that sprung up when another Brookfield player transferred to Newtown High (somehow) to join its elite soccer program.
Stueck never succumbed. Not even close.
“He used to tell us, `I can’t leave you guys behind. This town means too much to me,’” Niarhos recalled.
Just as he planned, Stueck enrolled at Brookfield High and started on the varsity soccer team from Day 1.
Any thoughts he had of obtaining “residency” with the U.S. National Team, however, were dashed when he tore his left ACL in a 3-2 loss to Sheehan in the 2006 Class L state tournament.
Stueck says he was “advised not to play” in the game because it was just a few weeks before tryouts for residency.
“It was the state playoffs,” Stueck said. “There was no way I was sitting out.”
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The next year, fully recovered from his injury, A.J. Stueck got a taste — albeit an odd one — of a state championship.
In 2007, his Bobcats tied Joel Barlow, 1-1, for the Class L state title.
“People didn’t know what to say to us after the game,” Stueck said. “Congratulations? Sorry? It was the worst feeling. I’d rather lose 10 straight state championships than tie.”
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Fast-forward to the 2009 Class L final. After two second-half goals by Stueck, the Bobcats erased their 2-0 halftime deficit and drew even with New Canaan.
The minutes continued to tick, however, and Brookfield was potentially staring at Stueck’s worst nightmare — another tie.
This time, there wouldn’t be another season or shot at redemption.
Stueck, Niarhos, Grisell, Bonn, Isaacs and McKean were seniors.
They had three minutes to do what they had talked about since they were 10 years old. As New Canaan threatened, Isaacs gained control and cleared it ahead to McKean, who quickly dished it to Stueck.
Stueck already had 97 career goals, half of which, he says, were assisted by Grisell.
This time, though, he wasn’t looking for No. 98. Grisell made a run for the goal. Stueck, after two touches, slid and toe-poked the ball through to Grisell smack-dab in the middle of the field. He was one-on-one with the New Canaan goaltender.
Stueck, still on the ground from his slide, didn’t see what ensued. But he’ll never forget hearing it.
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A.J. Stueck couldn’t stop talking with his teammates.
The Brookfield boys soccer players sat together in a circle– somewhere in the Brookfield High parking lot — for hours on end.
By this time, the students — the couple of hundred who had gone to the game and returned to the high school to celebrate — had cleared out.
It was just the team, the six seniors.
“We didn’t want to leave,” Stueck said. “We must have been there for three hours, just reminiscing about everything.”
This was the aftermath of a 3-2 victory, the most memorable game this group of six had ever played.
This was the moment that brought A.J. Stueck to Brookfield High in the first place.
5. Joe Groski, Abbott Tech (basketball and soccer)
12. Lisa Vendel, Newtown (lacrosse and field hockey)
22. Kayla Berardi, Brookfield (softball and field hockey)
