No. 4 What teams might not be getting the love they deserve?
To win the title: Texas A&M
The College Cup is in Cary, N.C., so Murphy’s Law suggests this will be the year the Aggies, so familiar with hosting championships in College Station, make it to the season’s final weekend, right? Not that any of G. Guerrieri’s crew would be complaining about the hardship of checking bags in early December.
Perhaps the best program never to reach the College Cup (or at least the best of the last decade, having reached the quarterfinals in 2001, 2002, 2006 and 2008), Texas A&M has the talent to not only get there this season but win two games once on site in North Carolina. The Aggies return 11 players who were regular starters last season on a team that went 15-7-3 and advanced to the Sweet 16. They also add two impact players who won’t have to deal with any freshman learning curve in senior Amber Gnatzig, a familiar face who missed last season with an injury, and junior Merritt Mathias, who contributed to championships the last two seasons with North Carolina.
Put Rachel Shipley, Whitney Hooper, Bri Young, Alyssa Mautz, Gnatzig and Mathias up against any collection of attacking talent in the country, including all the usual College Cup suspects, and you have a fair fight. A starter in A&M’s preseason exhibition against Rice, Mathias need all of nine minutes (8:59, if you’re counting) to get on the scoresheet with a goal. This is a team with the potential to get back over the 70-goal mark that the Aggies regularly surpassed earlier in the millennium. And with three returning defensive starters and two senior keepers, the other end of the field is hardly a wasteland.
To reach the College Cup: Rutgers
It’s difficult to imagine Rutgers didn’t come in over its budget last season, if only because of all the extra expenditures for crutches. At points during the campaign, the sideline featured almost as many people standing with some mechanical assistance as without. And yet still the Scarlet Knights finished with a 7-1-3 Big East record, absorbed a ridiculously tough draw from the NCAA selection committee and still almost made it to the Sweet 16, beating Duke in the first round before falling 1-0 against South Carolina on the road.
So what happens when Trisha DiPaolo, Gina DeMaio, Ashley Jones, Jonelle Filigno, Rheanne Sleiman, Ashley Medcalf and Karla Schacher actually stay healthy and get some games together? The Scarlet Knights will be trouble if we find out this season. Coach Glen Crooks guided the team through its recent injury woes by crafting a disciplined defensive style that generally made life unpleasant for opponents. That’s going to be more difficult to do this season without Erin Guthrie in goal anymore (or former goalkeeper coach and WPS regular Karina LeBlanc around to tutor the replacements), but health willing, Rutgers should have the offensive firepower to offset losing Guthrie.
The non-conference schedule starts out light, a potential plus with all the players working their way back into game form, but a nine-day stretch in the middle of September that includes games against Portland and Washington at Merlo Field and at home against Boston College should reveal a lot about where this team is headed before Big East play begins. (Rutgers also avoids West Virginia and Marquette in conference play this season, with an Oct. 10 road date at Notre Dame the signature game of that portion of the schedule.)
Just for the heck of it: Yale
Given the level of program we’re talking about, no team scheduled up quite like Yale did out of conference this season. Consider the first five opponents on the schedule: Penn State, Illinois, Connecticut, Duke and Boston College. The first two are at least home games for the Bulldogs, but like the rest of the Ivy League, they get a late start on the season. The Nittany Lions and Illini will both have had two weekends of regular-season games by the time they arrive in New Haven for the Labor Day long weekend.
On one hand, Yale coach Rudy Meredith isn’t the kind of guy to pass up any opportunity to challenge his program (witness opening the season against North Carolina in 2006 or trips to Chapel Hill and Portland in recent seasons). On the other hand, I have to think the schedule this year is a sign he thinks this could be a pretty special team. And the Bulldogs should be able to score. Becky Brown scored 13 goals in 16 games last season. She’s tiny, but she has the speed and quickness to play for any program. And with Kristen Forster, Miyuki Hino, Mary Kubiuk and others, Yale returns a lot of attacking talent. The challenge will come in replacing a number of key defensive players.
The first five games will be worth following, partly to see if Yale can score some RPI-boosting wins in building an at-large profile, but also just to see if the soccer they play, win or lose, makes them the team to beat later on in Ivy League play.
Graham Hays 