Reviewing the spring and the offseason, how did that go, what did you see and what did you like out of your group?
There were a lot of positives stacked on top of each other. We had a few players that had to take care of some things, nagging injuries from the fall season, and they were able to do that medically. So they're back to 100 percent fitness, and we feel really good about having them back and available to be in the lineup immediately. (Because of that) Players that we're looking to have step into leadership roles were able to play in games in the spring, were able to play in those roles, and did really well. And then we were able to create some new positional relationships between players and we saw some real, real fun relationships come out of that. So we feel really, really good about what our team is going to be able to do this fall.
You just kind of touched on it, but have you been pleased with the leadership you've been seeing out of your upperclassmen that may be transitioning into those roles?
I think, as much as anything, I've been really happy about the professional maturity of the entire team and how they really look to each other and kind of rub off on each other. And what I mean by that is the ability to go out and to see that they need to be working on extra things beyond what we do in our training sessions. So there are players out doing extra things on the technical side and players doing extra things functionally to try to get better at their craft all the time. And we’ve seen that in groups of two, three, four, five at different times of the day throughout the spring and even in the summertime. The fact that really the entire team has been back all of July and working out in the heat of the day is really exciting. We don't have access to them as coaches, but they're working out and our coaching colleagues around the country are looking with raised eyebrows saying, oh, wow, that's really special. And it really is. That's the maturity and the drive that this particular group has.
How does this preseason differ with from others as you’re in the middle of the Women’s World Cup?
This particular group of players is really attuned to what is happening in world football. We have players who have played on U.S. youth national teams, played in youth World Cups both here and in Canada. So those players are obviously very, very involved and very, very interested in what's going on on the world stage. Those players all want to play beyond college, so they're very, very much interested and paying attention to what's going on--both as fans but also as students of the game--in all of these matches. My only concern is that they get enough sleep because these games are happening in the middle of the night, and that they're going to get enough sleep to make sure that they're able to compete. But I know they know that. They know how to use recording devices so they can watch these games at the right time of day. But if the timing works out for us, we try to watch games as a group together, the U.S. and British and Canadian games.
What’s the ultimate goal or primary thing you’d want to accomplish over these next few weeks leading up to kickoff of the regular season?
More than anything, it's going to be to try to get our timing down, our speed of play. We still have some new players that are really important to us that we need to get them up to the speed of play of what Texas A&M wants to be able to play at to be successful. So to be able to get Sammy Smith and Grace Ivey and others on the same page with each other and with the other new players. To get Caroline Calzada back into the playing speed of the rest of the defenders, in coordination with Quinn Cornog and Margo Matula and Lauren Geczik (who missed last season)…so a lot of it is going to be rhythm and timing and just getting ourselves in sync with each other. And then, being able to make sure that we feel good about how we want to play, what our shapes are going to be in different situations, and then being able to start to stack different ideas on top of each other as quickly as possible.
