Glens Falls boys’ soccer adapts after championship season, coaching change

Before PJ Motsiff coached a Glens Falls boys’ soccer game, he sat down with the program’s five seniors he was inheriting and made something clear.

The Black Bears’ first Section 2 championship in 50 years belonged to last season’s team.

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What happened next would be up to them.

“This is really your team,” Motsiff told the players in the spring. “You guys get to control what you want to do. If you want to get back there, I got all the pieces … but we got to do the work.”

Getting “back there,” though, doesn’t simply involve recreating the team that reached last year’s Class A state semifinals.

Longtime coach Mike Shaver has retired. Several seniors from the championship team are gone. Motsiff has installed a new system, and three freshmen have joined the Black Bears’ starting lineup.

And Deklin Malison, last year’s breakout star who emerged as a freshman during Glens Falls’ postseason run, is learning what happens when opponents no longer overlook him.

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“It’s a huge difference from last year. I was kind of unknown and I could surprise them,” said Malison, whose highlights from last season included a hat trick in a 4-0 state quarterfinal win over Franklin Academy. “But, now, they know my name, my jersey. So it’s getting a little harder.”

That was evident in a recent game against Schalmont, a rematch of last year’s sectional semifinal. The Sabres swarmed Malison whenever he got the ball, often pressuring him into forced shots or difficult passes and disrupting Glens Falls’ attack in a 3-0 win over the defending Class A champions.

Motsiff is new to the job, but not to coaching or to the Glens Falls program.

He previously coached men’s soccer at SUNY Cortland, Saint Rose, and Skidmore; coached the Ballston Spa boys’ soccer team from 2002 to 2005; and, has held various high school and club coaching positions in the Capital Region since 1994. His ties to the Glens Falls boys’ soccer program run even deeper. He’s known Shaver for over 20 years, and both of Motsiff’s sons played for the longtime Black Bears coach.

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Under Shaver, Malison said Glens Falls was more inclined to play the ball directly to attackers higher up the field. This season, Motsiff has installed a 3-4-3 formation emphasizing possession, spacing and combination play. The results have been mixed for the Black Bears, who enter Wednesday’s game against South Glens Falls with a 4-4 record following a loss to La Salle on Monday.

“It’s a totally different ball game,” Malison said.

For Motsiff, one of the biggest challenges is getting a young team to recognize and solve problems on its own rather than waiting for instructions from the sideline. He wants the players to learn to “season themselves” instead of relying on him.

“These guys, they don’t quit on one another,” Motsiff said. “They’re extremely positive.

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“So, they’re trying to understand and learn their roles a little bit.”

That goes for Malison, too. Last year, he could surprise opponents. Now, teams are doubling and – sometimes – tripling him. Motsiff is asking him to recognize the space that creates, know when he has already beaten a defender and take advantage of the attention he draws by finding teammates, such as junior Evan Burgess or senior Ronan Westfall.

“Get in different positions and isolate myself, so I can get 1-on-1 situations,” Malison said of his approach.

After becoming Glens Falls’ top goal-scoring threat during the 2025 playoffs, the Black Bears now need Malison to show off more of his all-around game.

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“He’s so unselfish,” Motsiff said. “That’s what’s amazing about him. … The boys are starting to read off of him.”

Malison is making those adjustments while also dealing with a nagging foot injury he suffered while in Colorado with his club team. Motsiff has been monitoring his star’s workload and described Malison’s pain threshold as “off the charts.”

“They said it can’t get worse, so it’s this little jolt of pain,” Malison said. “It shouldn’t affect how I play and should heal in a couple weeks.”

Motsiff told his seniors in the spring that getting back to states would be up to them. A few months later, despite a new coach, a new system and a younger roster, the belief hasn’t changed.

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“Overall, we’re a great team,” Malison said. “We’re all great players and we’ve got great coaching. I definitely think we can get there again.”

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This article originally published at Glens Falls boys’ soccer adapts after championship season, coaching change.