At last: Griz back at play
8/4/2010 12:00:00 AM | Soccer
The University of Montana women???s soccer team got the 2010-11 sports season rolling Wednesday morning when the Grizzlies had their first training session of the year. The Montana football and volleyball teams open practice next week. The cross country teams convene later in August.
The soccer team???s appearance at South Campus Stadium ends a 54-day drought of a sterile, Griz-free existence. Not since Katrina Drennen competed at the NCAA track and field championships in Eugene, Ore., on June 10 had a UM student-athlete been officially in action, until today.
Montana is coming off a banner athletics season in 2009-10, with nine of it 14 sports finishing in the top three in the Big Sky Conference. That range of success across fall, winter and spring sports gave the Grizzlies the overall athletics title in the 2010 Sterling Savings Bank Presidents Cup.
The Griz soccer team finished sixth last season, one of the few Montana teams that weren???t top-three, but with 11 returning starters and an infusion of new talent, the team should not only challenge for one of the four Big Sky Conference tournament spots but tournament hosting rights as well.
And any elementary number theorist can pick out the simple pattern: Under seventh-year coach Neil Sedgwick, Montana has made the Big Sky Conference tournament in 2004, 2006 and 2008.
The team will have over two weeks of training sessions leading up to its season opener at New Mexico on Friday, Aug. 20. The team???s typical early-season schedule will feature morning practices at 9 a.m., followed by a second training session at 7:30 p.m. in a nod toward cooler on-field temperatures and fresher athletes.
Breaking up the early-season schedule will be an intra-squad match on Thursday, Aug. 12, and an exhibition match at Carroll on Saturday, Aug. 14.
2010 Montana soccer outlook
There is a Julianna, an India and a Sierra. A Kendra, Courtney and Carley. A Maddie and another Maddey. An Ashley, a Rachel and a Stephanie. They are alighting on South Campus Stadium this week from both afar ??? Minnesota, Arizona and California ??? and from just down the street in Missoula.
They are goalkeepers, defenders, midfielders and forwards, they range in height from five-three to six-feet, and they???ll take the field with hair bands that reflect a rainbow???s spectrum of color.
They make up seventh-year coach Neil Sedgwick???s incoming freshman class, and they give Sedgwick something he ended up being in desperate need of last season: depth.
Last year the injury hits to the Grizzlies??? numbers came before the season started (Britta Hjalmarsson), the first week of training (Ciara Kremer), the second week of training (Abby Grafft), early in the season (Alyssa Nystrom) and late in the season (Ashley Tombelaine).
And all had Sedgwick stretching his roster and shifting players to fill the unexpected gaps. The result was a frustrating 4-13-1 finish.
???Every Division I program runs into injuries, but last year I think we had a few more injuries than you would normally expect,??? Sedgwick said on the eve of the 2010 season. ???We started with 25 on the roster, and there was a time when we didn???t have 18 eligible healthy players to travel.
???There were a couple of knee injuries, a concussion, some ankle problems. Whether they are short-term or long-term, all of a sudden your roster gets cut down and you???re short players.???
Players he wanted to have in certain positions had to be moved to spots that did not mesh with their individual strengths. Freshmen who needed the opportunity to gradually gain experience at the Division I level were forced to play ??? at times ??? 90 minutes per match.
???Our healthy players ended up having to play too much, and you could really see that wear and tear toward the end of the season,??? Sedgwick added.
With so many minutes being played by so few, it was not just the match results that were affected. The individual development of each player ??? the growth as a player that is the cornerstone of Sedgwick???s coaching philosophy and program ??? was stunted because of a lack of quality training time.
???You end up having to train shorter and train lighter because you can???t afford to have another player injured,??? Sedgwick said. ???So the training sessions can???t be as competitive.
???You can start the preseason playing 11 versus 11 and do some different things with your training, but when you don???t have 22 players healthy, it???s tough to actually simulate what you want them to do in games.???
Enter the reinforcements. They are Sedgwick???s insurance policy incarnate.
Sedgwick signed nine players to National Letters of Intent in February, and continued to add to the group as the spring went by. He eventually settled on the 11 that join a team with 11 returning starters.
Determined to avoid a similar fate in 2010, Montana enters the season with 30 players on the preseason roster, the most in Sedgwick???s seven-year tenure.
???This team has a lot of depth,??? Sedgwick says. ???Not just in overall numbers, but we have many players that can fill many positions, giving us depth at different spots.
???This year we???ll have sufficient depth to fill those needs if we do run into difficulties with injuries.???
The most noticeable effect of last year???s injury issues was that the field seemed to be tilted in the wrong direction. Montana may have put a higher percentage of its shots (.441) on goal than did its opponents (.432), but those 18 opponents put nearly three times as many shots on goal and outscored the Grizzlies 36 to 15.
But seven of Montana???s 13 losses were one-goal games, five being 1-0 defeats, giving credence to Sedgwick???s claim that the game of soccer comes down to that special goal-scorer. If you have that player ??? and said player is able to patrol the field where they are most comfortable and dangerous ??? you are golden. Without that player, or with that player forced to play out of position, it???s going to be a struggle.
???Christine Sinclair scored (an NCAA-record) 39 goals for Portland in their (2005) national championship season,??? Sedgwick said. ???They were a good team, so they would have scored without her, but would they have scored that many?
???You see it at the professional level with the top clubs in England. They have great players, but when a club loses that one top goal-scorer, they have average seasons.
???That special person can score goals when they are truly needed, and it hurts the team when they???re not in.???
In 2006, Lindsay Winans led Montana with eight goals, three of which were the critical game-winners.
Montana???s scoring leader two of the last three seasons has had three goals.
???I think we???ve had those players the last couple of years,??? Sedgwick claimed, ???but we???ve had to play them at different positions. Kaitlyn Heinsohn is dangerous in front of goal. Frankie Brady is dangerous in front of goal. But we???ve had to play those deeper positions farther away from goal because of the needs that we???ve had.
???There are just not that many true, attacking players out there. Ciara Kremer, Britta Hjalmarsson, Erin Craig, Ashley Tombelaine, those are some of the attacking players we were relying on last season, and then they???re not there.
???If you lose one or two, it???s difficult to fill those holes.???
With a solid midfield returning in 2010, Montana should get more quality scoring chances for its forwards, and the Grizzlies appear to have the players (finally in position) to convert those opportunities.
Brady, a senior who led the team last year with three goals on her way to second-team All-Big Sky Conference honors, and Craig, a sophomore who in her third year is anticipating her first season at full strength, are two forwards Sedgwick repeatedly mentions when asked to predict this season???s top scorers.
Both players, who rank among the fastest on the team, came on strong late last season.
Brady scored all three of her season goals in Big Sky Conference matches. She scored the game-winner in the 65th minute in Montana???s 2-1 victory over defending regular-season champion Weber State, she scored the game-tying goal in the Grizzlies??? 2-2 tie with Sacramento State, and she appeared to have put in the game-winner at Northern Arizona until the Lumberjacks scored the equalizer in the 87th minute and the game-winner just under seven minutes into the first overtime in their 2-1 victory.
Craig rounded into form later in the season and started five of the team???s seven Big Sky matches. Of the 14 shots she took on the year, 11 came in league play. She scored her first collegiate goal against Sacramento State and assisted on Brady???s game-winner later in the match.
Also providing speed up front will be senior Teresa Huemann. Huemann tied for second on the team last fall with a pair of goals. Both scores came in Montana???s 4-1 victory over North Dakota, earning Huemann Big Sky Conference Offensive Player of the Week honors.
To his group of forwards Sedgwick will be adding Hjalmarsson, a redshirt freshman and speedy scoring threat who missed the 2009 season with an injury, along with incoming freshmen Maddey Frey and India Watne.
The threesome would be three-quarters of the way to having Montana???s dominant 4x100-meter relay team, and top-end speed up front is what Sedgwick has been searching for since he got into coaching over two decades ago.
In Frey, who he also lists among his team???s projected scoring leaders, Sedgwick seems to have found his ideal forward. She was the Montana Western AA Player of the Year as a junior and senior at Glacier High and also the Class AA state champion in the 100 meters in both 2009 and ???10.
When he???s discussing goal scoring, Sedgwick also mentions, of course, Heinsohn, a senior, and Tombelaine, a sophomore, who both get their chances from midfield positions.
Heinsohn led Montana in scoring as both a freshman (with three goals) and sophomore (five) and is the career leader in that category among her teammates with 10. Sedgwick says Heinsohn, a one-time second-team and two-time honorable mention All-Big Sky Conference performer, prefers to operate out of the midfield position, where she is able to keep play in front of her.
Tombelaine started the season???s first 11 matches last year before being lost for the season at Idaho State, which happened to be the team???s first of seven straight key Big Sky Conference matches. Though she played in only 10 full matches, the dangerous Tombelaine still managed to rank third on the team in shots with 14, putting an impressive nine on goal.
Three Big Sky honorable-mention players also return in the midfield, though one or two could also end up seeing time in a defensive role.
Sophomore Nawal Kirts scored a pair of goals last fall in her debut; Kremer, a sophomore who earned Big Sky accolades in 2008 as a true freshman, returns after missing 2009 with an injury; and junior Brandee Marone finished last season with a team-leading four assists.
Sophomore holding midfielder Lauren McCreath is back, and incoming freshman Ashley Robertson joins the group of midfielders after a successful summer playing on Arizona???s top club team, Sereno.
This year???s defensive group will be young but not as inexperienced as a year ago when then-freshmen Lauren Costa and Charlotte Dugoni played nearly every minute of every match as central defenders. Though Costa, the only player to start all 18 matches, showed she was ready for the jump up to Division I soccer, earning second-team All-Big Sky Conference honors.
Senior Carmen Reyes and juniors Blakele Bergman and Jaymie Brown will be in contention for important defensive roles, as will incoming freshmen Rachel Bindl, Carley Duvall and Courtney Watson. Watson, in particular, will be one to watch as a six-foot central defender who Sedgwick says is ???very good, very smooth on the ball.???
Whoever plays their way to the fore and major minutes will need to replace Abby Grafft and Sarah Stevens, who concluded their collegiate careers last fall with six honorable-mention All-Big Sky Conference selections between them.
With keeper mainstay Grace Harris gone to graduation ??? she played over 6,400 minutes (over 106 hours, or more than four days??? worth of backstopping) in goal in her four years ??? Montana will have a player seeing her first career minutes in maroon when the team kicks off at New Mexico on Friday, Aug. 20.
Sophomore Kristen Hoon, who???s been in the program two years, first as a redshirt, then playing behind Harris and Alex Fisher last year, and incoming freshmen Julianna Jack and Kendra McMillan will all be in the running for the starting job.
It???s a position that could have one player assume a majority of the minutes, as Harris did for four seasons, or it could turn into a season-long, two-player rotation, allowing Sedgwick and keepers??? coach C.J. Cooper to keep minutes competitive and going to the hot player.
???It???s an open competition,??? Sedgwick said. ???We don???t know how it will finish.
???You would certainly like to have one or two kind of shine and take responsibility. I don???t know if you???d want to rotate three, but you could always rotate two.
???You just need to look at the keeper that???s performing best on any given week.???
Beyond the physical skills and athleticism needed to make plays on shots on goal and defend corner kicks, the keeper also needs to be the commanding voice of the defensive unit playing in front of her.
???You have to go with someone your back four are comfortable with,??? Sedgwick added. ???(Goalkeepers) are not just shot-stoppers. They have to provide a lot of information to the players in front of them during the game, so we have to take that into consideration.???
Among the many reasons Sedgwick is excited for the season is a schedule heavy on home matches. After opening the season with a road trip to New Mexico and New Mexico State on Aug. 20 and 22, the Grizzlies will be at home three of the next four weekends, a big improvement from last year???s grueling schedule which had just one nonconference home weekend.
Not only does being at home provide additional training sessions (which are lost on some travel days) along with the other comforts and academic benefits of staying close, but it also keeps that portion of the roster that is not traveling more connected with the team and on schedule with their own training.
???Being at home gives us more time to train our young players,??? Sedgwick said. ???And if some of them are not on our travel roster, they???re missing a lot of training.
???If we???re on the road and traveling on a Thursday, often they don???t train on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday and again on Monday if it???s an off day for us. So they might not get to train with the group four or five days a week.???
Montana will play Iowa State and Gonzaga on its first home weekend, Wyoming its second home weekend and Boise State and North Dakota its third home weekend.
In between, over Labor Day weekend, is a trip to Reno to face Nevada and South Dakota State.
Montana will travel to California to play Pacific and UC Davis the final weekend of September, then gets a weekend off before Big Sky Conference play kicks off in early October.
This season Montana will have four of its seven league games on the road. The four-team Big Sky tournament, which is hosted by the regular-season champion, will be held the first weekend of November.
???I think this year???s schedule has good balance,??? Sedgwick said. ???It has some difficult games, both home and away, and some winnable games, which will be important for this young group.
???I think having some success and competing well early on is going to help us once conference gets here.???
After last season, when the team???s players were getting as much daily direction from trainer Toby Van Amerongen as they were from the coaching staff, simply some good luck in the health of the team could result in immediate returns.
But a step up in team speed should also result in more quality scoring chances, more goals being scored, a more exciting brand of soccer and, most importantly, more wins.
???This year we???ll be more dynamic than we???ve been the last few years,??? Sedgwick predicted. ???We have more pace, more overall team speed.
???Now we have some players with such good pace that they???ll be threatening in every one-versus-one situation.???
The World Cup is over, but its vuvuzela-sounding momentum lingers. Sedgwick hopes to tap into that this fall, in addition to putting a skilled, exciting and winning team on the field.
???I think anytime the U.S. men or women do well internationally and it???s promoted well, it generates more interest in the game,??? he said. ???We???ll have great support from our fans in Missoula, regardless, but I think the interest level might be heightened in people who are wanting to see what the best level of soccer being played in town is.???
