UCI NOTEBOOK : Freshmen Help Kick-Start Women’s Soccer
The problem with the UC Irvine women’s soccer team last year was a basic one. It couldn’t score. The Anteaters were goal-less in their first six games last season and, predictably, lost all six.
With the arrival of 11 freshmen this season, that has changed. The youngsters are leading a charge that already has produced more than twice the number of goals the team had all last season.
On the sideline during a recent game, two former players sat, wishing they had been blessed with such teammates a year ago.
“Right now we have (26) goals,” Coach Ray Smith said. “Last year we had a total of 12.”
A freshman, Molly Lynch, is the team’s leading scorer with eight goals and three assists. Already, she’s well on her way to the Irvine season record of 11 goals, set by Karin Grelsson in 1986 and matched by Kim Cusimano in 1987. Even more remarkably, Lynch is already tied for seventh in goals on the career list, with seven games remaining in her first season.
Another freshman, former El Toro High standout Shawna Berke, is the team’s second-leading scorer with three goals and seven assists.
Twenty of the Anteaters’ 26 goals have been scored by freshmen.
Smith, 26, and in his second season as coach, was hired too late to do any recruiting before his first season, but he made up for it last year. Among the incoming freshmen is a core of sturdy players, including Lynch, Berke, Katie Ralph, Jenni Tanaka and Lori Muzzonigro. Older players such as senior co-captains Melissa Pilgrim and Dawn Evans have seen their standing somewhat diminished, but the team as a whole has benefitted.
It is a program, that in Smith’s words, “has been down since it started,” in 1984. The record for victories in a season is eight, and there has never been a winning season.
But after finishing 6-12-2 last season, the Anteaters are already 7-5-1.
Instead of feeling resentment from the veteran players, the freshmen say they feel welcomed.
“The older players are really encouraging,” Tanaka said. “They tell us to look out for this, and watch for this.”
The class of 1995 may have a fine future awaiting, but the players aren’t waiting for it to happen.
“We are building, but we need to focus on now,” Ralph said. “If we looked ahead, we would say, ‘OK, we lost, so what?’ ”
Besides, they have teammates who will not be around to enjoy seasons to come.
“The older girls, they stuck with it, so we’d like to make it the best we can for them,” Berke said.
This year, they’re trying to become the first Irvine team not to finish with a losing record.
“That’s our goal, a .500 season,” Berke said.
Then the expectations get higher.”
Said Tanaka: “Next year, it’s a winning season.”
Broadcast News: Irvine is still looking for a radio station to carry its men’s basketball games, and time is getting short.
The Anteaters’ games were broadcast on KWIZ-FM last season, but that station has since gone to a Korean-language format. Irvine was on KORG for five years before that, splitting live broadcasts and delays with Cal State Long Beach, but Long Beach signed an exclusive live contract before last season.
The school is negotiating with one station now, but has no other immediate prospects, said Bob Olson, assistant athletic director for media relations. Schools with smaller followings typically buy time from a station, then sell their own advertising to cover costs. In contrast, teams with wider followings are often paid by the station for the right to broadcast games.
“It’s a tough market, a tough county to place your sports programming,” Olson said.
Should the prospective station not work out, Irvine fans may have no way of listening to games other than hoping to tune in the faint signal of student station KUCI, whose broadcast team does not travel to all road games.
Irvine’s two new head basketball coaches will put their players through paces in the early morning hours of Oct. 15 in a “midnight madness” session that will begin on the evening of Oct. 14 with tipoff activities. Under NCAA rules, teams may begin practicing after midnight.
Colleen Matsuhara, coach of the women’s team, will begin the process of picking a team over the first few days of practice. She has welcomed walk-on candidates, and says none of the returning players--even those with scholarships--are guaranteed spots on the team.
Rod Baker, men’s coach, has three starters back from an 11-19 team but has lost the team’s top three scorers.
Stat of the Week: With three goals last weekend, Steve Gill became the third active member of the water polo team to reach 100 career goals. Gill, a junior, has 101. Skylar Putman, a senior, has 168, and junior Pablo Yrizar has 132.
In an important Big West Conference game this week, third-ranked Irvine plays fifth-ranked Cal State Long Beach at 7 p.m. Thursday at Heritage Park.
Long Beach recently upset top-ranked and defending NCAA champion California.
Brett Hansen-Dent is ranked 23rd in the nation in the men’s tennis preseason rankings, but the sophomore’s ranking will be falling. That’s because Hansen-Dent has taken the quarter off from school to play satellite tournaments in Hawaii.
