The Portland State women’s soccer team began training for the upcoming 2011 regular season this week. The team is coming off an impressive spring off-season (4-1-1) and a record breaking 2010 Big Sky regular season (5-2-0), which ended with them finishing second. The team practices once or twice a day at the Peter W. Stott recreation field.
The Portland State women’s soccer team began training for the upcoming 2011 regular season this week. The team is coming off an impressive spring off-season (4-1-1) and a record breaking 2010 Big Sky regular season (5-2-0), which ended with them finishing second. The team practices once or twice a day at the Peter W. Stott recreation field.
“The fall practice has been going well,” head coach Laura Schott said. “We always start our preseason training around this time. The defense looks in good shape and the transition play looks good too.”
Schott is in her fourth year as the women’s soccer head coach and has already notched up 24 wins. This puts her third on the list of Portland State’s most successful coaches. Under her reign, the Vikings were crowned as the Big Sky regular season conference champions in 2009.
“Right now we are putting in double days of training,” Schott said. “The training sessions will taper down as we go into the scrimmages. During training we will be working on a bit of everything: defense, offense, combining and set pieces.”
This year, Schott has recruited seven new players to the team roster—five on signing day and two more this month. Amongst them is Sherwood High School’s Daniela Solis, who played in Mexico’s U-17 World Cup campaign. Six of the seven new players are from Oregon. In order to help boost team camaraderie, Schott has planned team events such as dinners and soccer match viewing parties.
“The new recruits are fitting in very well,” Schott said. “I have either coached them or seen them play before, and I am very happy with the way their personalities fit in with the team. Many of them will be challenging for a place in the starting eleven, and there will be some tight competition between them and some of the more established players.”
This year the Vikings play 17 games during the regular season—the shortest regular season since 1995. Since the Pac 10 became the Pac 12 this year, some of the teams cancelled their matches and the Big Sky regular season is starting a week earlier. The Viks will kick off their campaign with two exhibition games against Concordia tomorrow and against
University of Miami on Sunday.
“We are fortunate to play Miami and we are looking forward to compete against them. All our games are important to us especially the conference matches,” Schott said. “We will be competing to win, and we hope that our preseason games prepare us for the conference.”
Most of last season’s starters including Amanda Dutra, Amanda Howie, sophomore winger Eryn Brown, senior Melissa Trammel, junior Michelle Hlasnik, senior defenders Toni Carnovale and Esty Geiger will be on the team roster this year and will be expected to step up for the upcoming regular season campaign. The team is yet to vote on a captain for this season.
For the last two seasons, the Vikings had record-breaking regular seasons but on both occasions fell just short of winning the Big Sky title. In 2009, the Vikings won the Big Sky regular season championship and hosted the conference playoffs, but lost in the semi-finals to eventual champions Northern Arizona.
Last season, Portland State recorded their best ever conference regular season (5-2-0) and finished second. However, in the semi-finals, the Viks once again lost to the eventual champions Sacramento State.
“This year, our goal is to have a strong non-conference season, win the Big Sky conference and the conference tournament and book a berth in the NCAA,” Schott said. “I am looking forward to the season and can’t wait to get going on the road.”
