University of Georgia Athletics
Spring Soccer Practice Q&A With Coach Patrick Baker
February 23, 2007 | Soccer
You are playing a spring schedule with a lot road games against big-name teams. What do you hope to gain from such a challenge?
“This year we are losing so many talented seniors from our team. We have a lot of young, equally talented players with a lot of potential who need to continue their development. With that in mind, we tried to put together as difficult of a spring schedule as our budget would warrant. We are trying to play almost an exclusively NCAA Tournament field, highlighted by the likes of Florida State, West Virginia, Tennessee and others. We need to test ourselves and find out where we are individually and collectively. We want to be exposed so we can realize our weaknesses and improve on them. At the same time, we hope to perform well and gain valuable experiences from each event.”
What are your overall goals for this spring?
“We want to make everyone better individually, your spring season is a great time for player development. We have asked each player to really concentrate on two or three areas after the fall to improve upon during their off-season workouts. For some players, training alone will make them better, while for other players it will be playing valuable game minutes. At the end of the spring, regardless of whom we have coming in as freshmen or through the transfer market, we want to make sure we have a team that is ready to go out and compete at the highest level possible. Our hope is to solidify a lineup, find out what new leaders emerge, get a better idea of how this group wants to play and hopefully be excited about the team we have become.
“For example, we lost a lot in the form of set pieces – who takes them, who gets on the end of them, other subtleties like that. Maybe we are better in the back than I think we are, so maybe we have to take a look at the midfield as an area of improvement. We are going to be very young up top again. Last year a lot of people said if you stop Carrie Patterson, you stop Georgia. Hopefully another player can emerge in the spring and make an impact up top. We will see Ali Yoculan, Ashley Stinson and Katie Jacobsen get involved in that role. Lauren Glancy came on strong at the end of last year as well. They will all play other positions as well throughout spring, but we really want to try to find that unique partnership up top.”
What is the most exciting part of the spring season for you?
“After playing a few games over the next couple of weeks we will fall into that cycle of training, playing a game, watching video and evaluating and re-evaluating each player. Then you can go out in training and with some new ideas, then see if you can improve upon them in the next game. That is what is exciting about coaching – making your players and team better.”
How have the first few training sessions gone for the team?
“I like our progression over these first few days. When we first got back on the field and combined soccer with the offseason strength and conditioning program, you could see that it took its toll last week with some tired legs. But I think this week we have seen marked improvement across the board. Hopefully that will translate into good performances this weekend and continue our improvement next week.”
Last spring your team was decimated by injuries. How do your numbers look for this spring?
“Without question we are in a better situation this year. We have enough players to put a lineup together and have a few subs. Last spring we needed players like Ali Williams, Erin Sekerak and Pamela Elting to come back and help us out. Without them, we could not have had a spring because of our lack of numbers. This year we have five or six more healthy bodies than last year. When you have to practice with seven or eight players it can be pretty taxing and I think ultimately think that is why some players were drained last spring. This year, we can work on any training topic we want to because we are afforded enough healthy players so that everyone can train and still get a little rest.
“That being said, everyone will get plenty of playing time this spring. Everyone will get their shot and play a lot of meaningful minutes. Players that maybe didn’t get very much playing time in the fall will probably play more minutes in the next couple of weeks than they did in all of the regular season.
“We do have a couple of injuries, most notably Kristin Garman and Natalie Farley. We may get Kristin back after Easter, but we are not going to push her recovery. Natalie may be able to get back on the field after spring break, but certainly not before. We also have Elizabeth Jackson, who has been playing hurt, but I think after resting her this week, hopefully she will be able to go for the rest of the spring."
How does the loss of nine seniors affect the makeup of your team for this spring?
“We are going to be a very young team for some time. We only have three rising seniors in Joni Vickers, Beth Klueter and Ashley Stinson, and just four rising juniors in Megan Tomlinson, Kristin Garman, Ali Yoculan, and Courtney Cripps. So that leaves 12 true freshman going through their first spring season. They are going to have a wonderful opportunity to play, perform, grow and develop. Hopefully someone like a Carrie Patterson can continue to elevate her game after a very successful fall. There are two or three players who were in and out of the starting lineup in the fall who could raise their level of performance to make themselves a regular starter. Others may start for the first time, so it will be interesting to see how they play and who steps up and handles that pressure, not only in how they perform but how they prepare. We will also have some people playing out of position just based on our numbers and that always proves to be interesting.
“We are excited get Dani Abelson back, who was arguably our top signee a year ago, after her off-season surgery. We didn’t think we would need another defender last fall but due to injuries we could have used her. I think we made the right decision by holding her out though. In her early workouts so far you can see how talented she is and how valuable she will be, and she has only been with us for a few days. It is great to see her and Tomlinson building a very valuable relationship in the back, which is an area of concern for us.
“Arguably the biggest personality player we will have to replace is Randi-Lynn Bruso as the attacking midfielder. Elizabeth Jackson will get time there, as will Olivia West, and Ashley Stinson this weekend. When Natalie Farley comes back she is a natural option there too. Lauren Glancy will play there some as well – that is the position we actually recruited her for. We won’t have a Randi, there is no doubt about it. But, there are a lot of teams that lost a lot of good players just like we did. That just means there is a great opportunity for someone to step up and become our attacking midfielder. We also lose our starting wide midfielders in seniors Cortni Joyner and Kelly Whitaker. The whole complexion of our backfield and midfield will change. We could at times have a freshman in goal, three freshmen in the back, two freshmen up top and three freshmen in midfield. Again, we will be young overall but the future is very bright here.”
Your 2007 signing class just received more national accolades. Can you talk about those players and how you see them fitting in with your current players in the fall?
“We are very pleased that some of our incoming individuals are receiving some wonderful recognition nationally. Last year we had only one Top-100 recruit in Dani Abelson, but this year we have four players listed in the Top 100. Kelli Corless is playing at such a high level and we are so excited to have her joining our back line. I expect that she will have a wonderful career as our left back. Alex Hooker will provide another dimension for us up top and make us even more dynamic so we will be able to cover every base with different combinations of players. We will be able to play with our backs to goal, be explosive and powerful, or be intricate and tricky. She is a game breaker and a difference maker. Traci Dreesen is one of the best all-around players coming in, she can play so many different positions. She can play center back, center midfield or she can play up top. The two things that really separate her are her skill and understanding of the game. She has the ability to play the ball, get it, give it, whatever the case may be. Knowing we were going to lose Randi-Lynn Bruso, we wanted to recruit what we thought was a younger version of her, and we thought Traci could possibly be that player. Finally, I think Marah Falle is terrific. A lot of people know how talented she is but she hasn’t gotten quite the national exposure of some others. She has not been able to attend the last two Thanksgiving events for ODP because there was always something holding her back, an injury or what have you. But just like Traci, she is versatile, athletic and can play so many different positions. On her high school and club teams, she is often the difference between winning and losing, and her teams are winning a lot. She will help us immediately. I am really proud of all eight players that we signed, and I am glad that half of the class could get that kind of recognition.
“Fitting your new players into your team in the fall can be hard. It was last year because we had so many older players. I think it will be different this year because there is a lot of common ground between our current and our incoming players. The three girls from Colorado are from the Real club where Lindsay Stein played. Lindsay is so well thought of on and off field, the newcomers know her and she has spent some time with them. She went back over holidays and showed up at their training session, so I know they are excited to rejoin her here. Our current players from the Tophat club know the three newcomers from Tophat. All eight newcomers came to our summer camp and they all came on the same weekend for their official visits, so they have spent some time with our current players. Plus, with technology nowadays they are constantly in touch with each other. Our current players are very excited to embrace our newcomers in the fall and they understand that as long as we are all playing for each other, great things can happen for us.”
