Aug. 22, 2012
OPENING STATEMENT
Morett: Let me introduce our two players here. These are both fifth-year seniors and both our captains for this year: Ayla Halus, who is our goalkeeper, and Hannah Allison, who is a middy/back/forward.
Q: How is the team looking at this point?
Morett: I think we're looking sharp. There are a few things that we're going to have to prepare over the next couple of days to get ready for Old Dominion on Friday. But I think that we grew a lot last weekend in our two exhibition games against the U.S. Under-21 Team and also against James Madison University. We have a lot more depth than I think that we realized initially, and the players have been working extremely hard. The tempo at practice is very, very high and the intensity is high. So I think if we can just come together a little bit more as a defensive unit, then we'll feel more confident going into the game on Friday.
Q: You talked a lot about defense during the preseason. What area, specifically, do you feel that you need to play better at to succeed?
Morett: I think really what we need to do is get the right people in the right position. We have a lot of talented backs, but we're just really trying to find the right combination between our left back and our deep center back, between our deep-center mid and our center back. We're just trying to find that right combination between the right people. We have Brittany Grzywacz, who has come on in the last week, and Hannah (Allison) has done a great job in the deep back position and the center back position. And we have a couple of sophomores, Katie Breneman and Katie Andrews, that I think do a good job, as well. So just really trying to fit the right people in the right positions.
Q: Is that something that you'll figure out as the season goes on?
Morett: I hope that we figure it out tomorrow. It's interesting, as the season goes on, you sort of do make some subtle changes. But the nice thing about the people that we have in the backfield is that they're very interchangeable in their positions. And I think they're very flexible in playing the left side or the right side or the center. And we really have been emphasizing, with all of those players, the ability to interchange with each other. So I think we have been pretty good with that. Hannah, you're a part of that. What do you think about the backfield?
Allison: Wherever she tells us to go, we're going to try our hardest to play there. I think that we do have a lot of versatility on the defense. And we have Ayla back there, who is a very strong communicator. She helps us out a lot in positioning.
Q: Hannah, what is that like as a player to be in different spots at different times?
Allison: We just try to adjust to it. I think it helps us out in the long run, too, because if she needs us to play a certain position in the moment, we can play there. It's good for us.
Q: Starting with Old Dominion on Friday has become a tradition for you. How tough is that to start the season?
Morett: It's a challenge, and that's what I love about it. I think that every year in my 26 years, I say that it gives a great purpose to preseason. You know that you really have to prepare and be on top of your practice very session. Looking at the game tape last night and this morning, the score doesn't reflect how hard we played (last year against Old Dominion). Ayla did a great job in goal, she made some great saves and stopped a lot of dangerous situations. I feel good about having Ayla back there with the experience of taking on a tough team. (Head coach)Beth Anders is retiring after this season. She has been a long term friend of mine, a mentor to me when I was the assistant coach with her for four years and we were Olympic teammates. So I'm sure that she really wants to have her team prepared on all cylinders from the start of the season until the end. I think that they had a very disappointing end to their season, vying for the national championship. They went through the season pretty much undefeated, maybe one loss, and then lost to Maryland in the semifinals. So that team is going to come out obviously very motivated...as will we.
Q: Does that give you a nice target to focus on for the start of the season, having such a tough opponent right off?
Halus: Yes, definitely. I love opening up with ODU and then following up with UVA. It's a great competition. You always know that their forwards are going to give you a fight. They take one shot and then they're right back at the second shot. And our defense always gets a good challenge from them. We get tested early in the season and it's high competition right away, so I always look forward to our opening game.
Q: How is the offense? Do you have pretty balanced scoring?
Morett: Yes, we feel good about our offense and that we have two pretty strong lines that we can interchange. With our rolling and unlimited substitutions, we have been able to get a lot of players in the game. And at the same time, we can bring out some of the stronger players to rest them, and then get them back into the game fresh. So we have shown a lot of depth in the forward line. Obviously Kelsey Amy is our leading scorer coming back this year and she has been playing very well. We didn't have Taylor Herold, she was hurt, but I think that Taylor is going to give a little more depth and punch to that forward line. Jenna Chrismer, Ashtin Klingler...we have some really good forwards that we can intermix on the forward line to be dangerous.
Q: Can you talk about some of the improvements to your facility?
Morett: Yes, it's so nice to talk about. This year, you'll notice that when you do come to our field, we have a giant video scoreboard thanks to Tara Maguire. Tara played for me, we were trying to figure out the years, but I know that she trained with the Olympic team in 1996 and she was a 1997 graduate. She donated a lot of money to put in the video scoreboard and a control booth. It's been exciting just to watch that go up. We have obviously been watching the Pegula ice arena go up pretty much all summer, so it's nice to see something for us. Our control booth tower and our video board have added a lot of aesthetics to the facility, and also it's going to add a lot of excitement. I think that it will be something for the fans to enjoy.
Q: Is it distracting having that giant construction project right on the other side of the fence?
Allison: No, we block it out.
Halus: It's not really distracting. Sometimes it gets a little loud and it's hard to talk to each other, but it's just exciting to see our university getting built up, the facilities becoming that much better and seeing another sport becoming a Division I program.
Morett: It is noisy over there. You have the construction on that side, and then our players are blaring their iPod and we're competing with football, who is blaring their iPod about 200 yards away...So it's a real mix when you hear the rap going on down there and we might have Céline Dion playing. And then it's just a weird combination with the construction going up alongside of it. But it's a very festive atmosphere, I have to say that.
Q: What kind of contributions will we get this year from our State High products?
Morett: We have three players, Ally Lauth, Amanda Dinunzio and Jacqueline Kenney, each in a different class. We're excited about all three of them. Ally just really flies at the ball; she'll dive to get her stick on it. Now we're trying to teach her to break down a little bit on defense, so she doesn't go flying past the defender. But she really has a great backhand shot and I think that she's going to be dangerous as she grows in the game. Amanda has had a very good preseason. She has shown a lot of versatility. We have played her a little bit at back, in the midfield and even on the forward line. Jacqueline is just a pure back. She really concentrates on her marking and her transitions skills. It has been exciting having those three. I love the State College kids. And Karin Grap, one of my former players, is now the new high school coach at State High.
I would like to talk about two new people that I have on staff. Jen Long is back. She was an All-American for us and took us to the final game in 2007. Jen was just working for two years as the assistant at Harvard and is going to be going to nursing school at the end of September. But she has been here all of preseason and I think that she has been a tremendous help to our team and our defense. And then we have Stuart Smith, who was our volunteer coach for two years. We have promoted him to a full time assistant and he has been the goalie coach, and also a tremendous help. He has really been challenging the goalies and very helpful in different facets of the game.
Q: Are there any other freshmen who are going to be making an impact early?
Morett: We have Bethany Mink and Haley Kerstetter, but I would say that the freshmen are going through that "deer in the headlights" phase right now. They just need a little bit more time to settle in and understand their surroundings. But the upperclassmen have been doing a great job. I think that one of the strengths of this team this year is their camaraderie on and off the field. I think that there's a lot of trust between every class and a lot of fun between every class. When I had to get on the bus to go to Maryland to play the U.S. Under-21 team, I was excited about it. They're a great group of women to be around and we have a lot of fun, so I'm excited to see how far they can go this year.
Q: Can you talk about how you are playing nine nationally ranked teams this season?
Morett: The schedule has always been tough. It says a lot about our conference, as well, to see all of the conference schools up there. Northwestern has greatly improved their program over the last couple of years. Obviously Michigan and Iowa...I think almost everyone in our conference is in the Top 25. So that's going to be a challenge once we start the Big Ten schedule at the end of September. We're really excited about being on TV three times with the Big Ten network. We're hopefully going to take advantage of those situations. When it comes to the schedule, you need to play a tough schedule. If you want to be playing for a national championship, you need to be challenged and you need to be challenged throughout your season. So we're starting out with Old Dominion, nine-time national champions themselves, and then going on to play UVA...UVA has two players that played in the Olympics, Paige Selenski and Michelle Vittese. You'll see them on Sunday flying around the field and they're highly talented players. We're going to have to come up with a game plan to stop those two. And then it doesn't really get much easier as we go on to Connecticut, who was at the Final Four last year. Then we play Princeton, who has four players that trained with the Olympic team, the following Thursday. We love it though. We're going to be ready and prepared, and accept the challenges moving forward.
Expect a lot of exciting home games, and you'll see a lot of talented players when you come to the field. We have Kelsey Amy and Laura Gebhart, one of our sophomores who has had a great summer. She is with the U.S. Under-21 Squad and she's on the U.S. Developmental Squad. Whitney Reddig is very good and we have Lauren Alwine, who finished playing four years of soccer at UVA and has taken her fifth year here to play field hockey. We recruited her way back when, and finally we got her. It took us four years, but we finally have her on the field playing field hockey.
Q: What are your expectations going into this weekend?
Allison: The first two games are always a competition. We always hear that she (Morett) is going to schedule these two games back-to-back, and it always comes through. But we're very excited and it sets the bar high right away. If we get these two wins, it bumps us up. We're No. 9 right now and Old Dominion is No. 3. I think we're ready. We've been practicing for a while, but now we're really looking forward to the fans coming, too. We usually have a good crowd the first two games, so it's exciting.
Halus: I agree with Hannah. We're all really excited to finally play someone besides ourselves, which usually happens during preseason. So when we start these games, we're ready to go and take it to the team that we're playing against. Our expectations are very high for this season. Our girls are so excited, whether they're young or whether they're older. We're ready to play.