At the end, it wasn’t good, not for the men’s or women’s soccer teams at UH Hilo in 2015.
At the end, it wasn’t good, not for the men’s or women’s soccer teams at UH Hilo in 2015.
In the 14-school Pacific West Conference, each Vulcans’ squad ended up 11th, for vastly different reasons, but none of the explanations are enough to generate a smile on the face of Lance Thompson, the school’s director of soccer, and a guy who doesn’t have a lot of experience with losing seasons in his background.
For both teams, for the breadth of NCAA soccer on the Big Island, transformation is in progress, at Thompson’s direction, in dissimilar ways with each gender, but there is no question that change is afoot.
“I’m not much into excuses,” Thompson said last week, “but at the same time, we all recognize that, good or bad, things happen and you have to deal with it.”
One parallel that connects each team is a matter of size, or more to the point, the lack of same. The men’s and women’s teams were smaller than whoever they played, all season, and the need to get a bigger roster is near the top of priorities for both teams as Thompson heads to California later this month to personally scout players interested in pursuing their college careers in Hilo.
For both teams, he’ll be looking for bigger players in the back third for a steadier, more bullish kind of presence that can better limit opposition shots.
The men’s team took 87 shots on goal this season, while allowing 109, an advantage of 22 more shots on goal for the opposition. The women’s team had an even more disturbing result in that category, with just 73 shots on goal while surrendering 161. You simply can’t win with numbers bent that far against you.
Worse, Thompson lost his starting goalie Jenna Hufford early on for the balance of the season after a meniscus injury, and then backup goalie Kayla Clarke suffered a concussion that also sidelined her for the rest of the season.
Competing in the NCAA with someone in goal who had never been there before is a little bit like being at the wrong end of a shooting gallery at the state fair.
Nobody else on the team had played in goal, so Thompson chose freshman Tiani Teanio to start the last seven games with no experience whatsoever in goal.
“Never had that happen,” Thompson said, “I considered Tiani our best athlete so my decision was to put our best athlete in goal and hope for the best.”
Teanio, a Waiakea graduate, did what she could, but it was an uphill battle. In a game at conference champion Point Loma, the Vulcans were outshot 25-1 in a 1-0 loss, a remarkable effort for the goalie. The bigger issue was that, lacking depth, the Vulcans were weakened up front when Teanio was taken out of her forward position, so the net effect was that the offense was damaged by losing Teanio and the goalkeeping was similarly hurt by injuries. All of this should be buried in the past next season when Hufford returns, healthy.
The men’s team was a different situation, with 14 seniors left from the previous coaching staff. Lack of size was an issue, but Thompson has almost a clean slate now to recruit a different mix of players. He thinks he can do that by investing more time in the admissions process.
The soccer program, he said, hasn’t had a history of fully exploring all the funding opportunities for prospective students. In Division II, athletes don’t get “full rides” as is the case in Division I, but scholarship money gets split up, a little here, a little there.
“There are opportunities out there that we haven’t explored enough (in the past),” Thompson said, referring to Pell Grants, student loans, work study programs and an agreement with West Coast schools for transfers that greatly reduces costs.
It’s a lot of detail, it requires a sophisticated understanding of all the various academic assistance per individual case, but if successful, Thompson can save scholarship money here and there through various grants and be left in a position to offer a more sizable financial package to an exceptional player he might not otherwise be able to attract.
“We need to get bigger, we need to get better in the back and up front,” he said. “We can’t do much about injuries, they happen, but if we manage our resources better, I believe we will have stronger teams.”
Manage your resources, gain some physical size and strength, especially in the back third of the field, and the benefits will be revealed in the results.
Starting in 2016.
Contact Bart with comments or story ideas at barttribuneherald.com