Aggie Soccer Records Best Season to Date

By the slightest of percentages, the 2002 season was the best the Utah State women's soccer team has ever had.

The Aggies rounded out their schedule two weeks ago with two wins to finish 8-9-3 overall and 2-6-1 in Big West Conference action for a .475 overall winning percentage, slightly better than the program's 1999 season (8-9 for .470).

The Aggies will lose six seniors, three of who started in all or nearly all games this season. This includes leading scorer Brigid Turner (32 career goals) and defensive anchors Megan Tanner, Jessica Ebner and Lyndy Goodsell.

Neither the records or loss of key players are anything to shout about, but the future for the team looks bright.

The Aggies will return sophomore 20-game starters Heather Arnell and Melissa Baggaley.

Jen Kennedy Croft is only in her second season at USU as head coach (fourth overall). For her first complete recruiting class she brought in eight freshmen and one junior-college transfer (Shaylee Hogge) who scored five goals and tallied seven assists.

The bulk of the credit for the season's record goes to a solid first 10 games in which the Aggies jumped out to 6-2-2, the best start in program history.

After the great start, the team went through an entire month without grabbing a win, losing eight and tying once.

The Aggies have never had a winning campaign in BWC play (17-39 through seven years), and this season was the same story, but with a twist.

Talent level wasn't what held the team back. It was a head thing. A huge cement mental block.

A prime example: USU held leads of 1-0 early in matches six times, losing three and tying three.

This, Croft said, is because the team had a tendency to lose focus in the following minutes after scoring a goal, leading to the other team scoring a goal for themselves.

After all, focusing on anything intensely for 90 minutes is tough. The problem became bad enough that Croft had her team meet with Rich Gordin, a sports psychologist at USU, before the team's final two home games. The hope was that he could give them some helpful tips on how to stay alert through a whole game.

As to whether Gordin's advice worked is left to debate, but USU did close out the year 2-2-1 after the visit.

"It's challenging and a little bit frustrating," Croft said. "We didn't really live up to our talent level. We were very up and down."

Arnell said, "We definitely had the talent [to win, but] I think we were too individual and we didn't play as a team towards the end. It was disappointing."

Sizing up women's soccer in the Sun Belt

It was announced Oct. 20 that every sport at USU would join the Sun Belt Conference by the 2005-06 season — soccer included.

In an interesting culmination, this season's freshmen (Croft's first recruiting class) will be a part of the first team to compete in the new conference.

So, how does the Sun Belt compare to the Big West in women's soccer?

Common knowledge seems to be that the Big West is better overall in women's sports, but soccer, as of this year is an exception — at least on paper.

You can start with the Ratings and Percentage Index (RPI) ranking, in which the Sun Belt sits at No. 11 to the Big West's No. 15.

Denver University (17-1-2, 8-0 in the Sun Belt), won the Sun Belt conference tournament for the second straight season last weekend. It is currently ranked No. 13 in the Nov. 11 Soccer Buzz top 25 poll.

Even with these facts, USU's travel budget will be put to the test.

The nine schools who currently sponsor women's soccer in the Sun Belt come from eight different states — stretching from Colorado to Florida.

"I think it will be a very difficult conference for us as far as our budget goes," Croft said. "The travel that we are expected to do will be difficult."

"I don't want to [be in the Sun Belt] just because it's so much traveling," she said. "In a weekend, we would have to go from different states. [There] is just lots of traveling. I don't want to [travel]."

Jason Neidell, head soccer coach at Sun Belt school Western Kentucky University, said the travel expectations put on his team are big, but there are positives.

"Academically, it forces our players to develop really good relationships with their professors and to be disciplined and organized in their studies," he said.

Commenting as to what kind of impact bringing the Aggies into the conference might have, Neidell said it depends on how things are split up.

"USU is an up-and-coming team in Division I soccer [but] it is difficult to determine whether adding [it] will be positive or negative," he said. "It really hinges on how the conference handles the addition.

"If we divide the conference into two divisions — east and west — it will really help reduce travel costs and allow us to play more non-conference games in our region."

By Sammy Hislop; samhis@cc.usu.edu
Photos by Zak Larsen