Tough Task
August 18, 2005 11:13 AM | General
August 18, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia University men’s soccer coach Mike Seabolt says his team’s first week of fall camp will be spent working on fundamentals. The Mountaineers began practicing for the 2005 campaign Tuesday morning with a fitness test and then have had two-a-day workouts since.
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| Third-year coach Mike Seabolt says his team will be facing a very difficult schedule in 2005.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“Fundamentals are so important and we also want to make sure the young guys can get up to speed as fast as they can,” Seabolt said. “We hope in a few days we’ll be moving on to the next step.”
The third-year coach has to accelerate preparation this fall because of a 2005 schedule that is tougher than usual. The Mountaineers will travel to No. 7-rated SMU on Sept. 9, to play in the Radisson Hotel Classic. West Virginia will also lock up with No. 8-rated New Mexico in Dallas and later in the year has regular-season conference matches against No. 16-ranked Notre Dame and No. 19 Connecticut.
“The schedule we’ve made is incredibly tough,” said Seabolt, now 17-17-4 at WVU. “I want to have a team that can face the best teams in the country every week and play them hard and give ourselves a chance to win. In order to achieve our goals and not just be a solid team but to one day be a great team, that is what we have to do.
“We might struggle. There might be some games where we struggle but as long as we’re learning from that and we’re getting better then we’re on the path that we want to be on,” he said.
West Virginia turned some heads last year with an impressive 12-7-1 record that included a pair of wins over nationally ranked Notre Dame and St. John’s. The Mountaineers made it to the Big East tournament semifinals and has eight of 11 starters returning. In addition to a solid group of veterans, the coach also likes what he’s seen so far from the newcomers he’s brought in.
“The young guys have come in fit so they’ve done their work over the summer to prepare themselves,” he said.
Although Seabolt is reluctant to single out players, his team will probably revolve around its top two goal-scorers Jarrod Smith and Dan Stratford, a 5-foot-11-inch, 155-pound sophomore who led the team in scoring last year with six goals and 16 points.
Smith, at 6-2 and 185 pounds, provides a physical presence on the field and Seabolt is hoping the former New Zealand U-20 national team member is fully recovered from foot surgery two years ago.
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| Seabolt believes junior Jarrod Smith could be a big offensive threat for West Virginia this year.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“We’re waiting for him to have a break-out year,” Seabolt said. “He’s prepared himself well -- he had surgery a year and a half ago and that took him a long time to really recover even though he played last year, but he was never 100 percent.”
Seabolt says leadership also needs to come from senior midfielder Devon McTavish, junior defenseman Cole Beasley, sophomore midfielder Andy Wright and junior goalkeeper Nick Noble.
“It’s hard for me to name names because we need everybody,” Seabolt said.
One key player Seabolt is without this year is all-Big East midfielder Aaron Pitchkolan, now playing professionally with FC Dallas of the Major Soccer League.
“We’re going to miss Pitch -- he did a great job,” Seabolt said. “The big thing that we’ll miss with him is the leadership in the back as far as his experience playing in the Big East for the last three years. I think we’ve got the guys to replace him and I think he set a great example and hopefully other guys will follow.”
Seabolt says it could even be a combination of players taking Pitchkolan’s center-back position on the defense.
“You don’t want to change your defense that much so you do want to have somebody to step up and fill those shoes and those are big shoes to fill,” Seabolt said.
According to Seabolt, his primary focus right now is getting his team organized on the defensive side.
“We sort out defense first because you aren’t going to win if you give up goals. Then we move on to offense as we get closer to the season,” he said.
Seabolt says the team will go to the normal NCAA 20 hours per week of training beginning next week. The Mountaineers have one preseason match against George Washington on Saturday, Aug. 27, before opening the regular season in Morgantown on Thursday, Sept. 1, against Campbell. WVU will also face Temple on Saturday, Sept. 3, as part of the WVU Labor Day Tournament.
The coach opted to play just one preseason game and 19 regular season matches this year.
“I want to play a schedule that puts us against the best teams every week so that meant playing 19 games. We had a chance to add somebody good to the schedule so I jumped at it,” he said.
Briefly:
“In soccer, because the coach does not have as much influence, once the game starts you kind of have two thoughts: One, you either build a team by bringing in players to fit your system or two, you kind of fit the system to the players,” he said. “At this point, I want to get players that fit our system for the most part. Then you adjust based on the quality of players we have: their strengths and weaknesses. The overall philosophy of the program and the tactics that we use: we want to bring in players that fit our system.
“Number one important factor when I recruit is character and the number two most important factor is how hard are you going to work? The last thing is certainly talent. We’ve got guys to fit those criteria where as a few years ago we didn’t.”
“Scott was a great friend and a great coach,” Seabolt said. “Keith has done a great job so far and he’s fit in really well quickly. What he lacks in experience he’s making up for in hard work and I think he’s going to do a great job.”
“I know a few of them; I know a few of the coaches and I know a few of the players on the teams but as far as knowing them in detail I don’t yet,” he said. “We’ll get to see South Florida in our second tournament when we go out to Dallas. We don’t play South Florida but we’ll get a chance to see them play.
“Soccer lost nothing and gained a ton with the changes. The league is just incredible. The teams we replaced them with are as good if not better.”
“What we are really oriented toward is not giving the ball away. If we can keep possession as long as possible we don’t have to defend,” he said. “So it is possession first, defend when we have to, make sure we can win the ball back, and then use that to spring our attack.”
“We’ve got to throw our best team out there for at least 45 minutes and see where they’re at. In the second half we’ll look at some different players and some different options. We’ve got to be ready to roll because every game counts,” he said.
“To build a good team we want to be two-deep at every position. I want every spot on the field to be a war because that’s how the players get better,” Seabolt said. “It doesn’t matter how good of a coach you are, if the players aren’t pushing each other then they’re not going to improve.”
