The Sabre’s “State of the Programs” series keeps rolling along – this article on women’s soccer is the latest in the series. Here are the leftover answers from coach Steve Swanson that didn’t make the article.
On the current assistant coaches Kerry Dziczkaniec and Ron Raab as well as volunteer coach Jen Bhalla …
“Our staff is great. We’ve got one of the few staffs where I think all of the coaches have been head coaches at the Division I level. That’s unique. Our volunteer coach this year, she’s got more of a sports psych emphasis and she’s been a Division I coach as well. We’ve got good people working in the program. I feel strongly that we’re going to break through.â€
On recruiting …
“Recruiting has changed in the sense that everything is happening earlier for our sport. Our sport, it’s gotten so competitive so fast that you’re not recruiting one class in a given year, you’re recruiting three. You’re finalizing your class that is incoming, you’re getting commitments from the year below them, and you’re evaluating the next year below them. You’re working with three different classes and you’re trying to get the crystal ball out three years down the road and see how they’re going to fit into your team. That’s a difficult process in and of itself. … Three years makes a big difference. That’s a lot of time to develop and grow.â€
On Coach Gelnovatch’s team breaking through to win the NCAA Championship in 2009 …
“It’s interesting, I think George’s run just shows what can happen in our game. It shows what can happen. I think both teams are pretty tight, George and I have coached our sons together the last couple of years, and I think it was such a good example of the kinds of things that can happen to a team playing together and grinding out games, getting good contributions from all over the field. I think George would probably tell you that he’s had more talented teams in his time, but the team had a resolve to it and they played together and they all knew their roles and did their roles very well. There are certainly things we can take away from their year. We were so happy for him. Our payers were ecstatic and went to the games. Look at how long George has been here and I think it’s part of it. Our sport is so difficult. It’s one of those where you can dominate and not win. You have to have a certain mentality to get through it.â€
On some keys to advancing deep in the NCAA Tournament and having a good season …
“It’s such a short season in a lot of ways, I think you have to get off to a good start. … I think if you win those games, it gives you a little confidence and a little momentum. Your team has to be mentally tough to just ride out those [challenging] stretches in the season so you feel like when you come into postseason play, you can beat anybody.â€
On last season’s challenges …
“It was an interesting year. The year before we lost our whole back line, the whole back four and three of them went to play professionally so you would think coming into last year, we’ve got a problem at defense, you’ve got to work that out. We’re going to have to be scoring goals and we returned all six of our attacking players. Two years ago, we gave up I think 23 goals in 24 games and this past year we gave 18 goals in 23 games. So our defense actually was better with less experience. We just had trouble putting the ball in the back of the net consistently. Not actually getting the chances, which is probably harder, but actually putting the ball in the back of the net. We just couldn’t do it on a consistent basis. I think more than anything that hurt us. I look at the season and I felt we scrambled to get in to the tournament, but I felt we could have easily been almost undefeated at one point. We had a lot of ties. I felt we were a little bit snakebit at times during the year, but I think it helped us in one sense because we really had to battle and fight for our position.â€
“We had to scramble [to make the NCAA Tournament] and it was the first time we were really in that position and I thought it did a lot for our mental toughness. I thought by the end of the year, we were playing very good soccer. We went to Penn State in the NCAA Tournament and upset Penn State at their place – six goals in 20 minutes. It was like we let out all the demons is what was happening. That was probably our greatest comeback, arguably in the history of the program. You think about it. You’re down 2-0 to a top 10 team at their place in the NCAA Tournament and you score six goals in 20 minutes. I think it gave the team an idea of the type of team they can be.â€
