It's Lady Monarch Time
If you take a look at the Conference-USA stat sheets, it doesn't show you a team with promise, but stats only tell you half the story. Regular attendees of their games can speak of the never say die attitude that the Lady Monarch players possess, and that attitude has finally paid off in the win column last Friday afternoon with a 2-0 victory over East Carolina.
Losing and the struggle builds character, and at 1-8-1, their patience and resolve will inevitably be tested. But at least on the surface, it seems that the players on this squad are composed. Taylor Smith, a junior forward/midfielder, a Virginia Beach native, and Ocean Lakes High School product, admits that the mix of many newcomers into the system with the returning players has had its fair share of difficulties.
Achieving on-field cohesion has proven to be a tall task. "Having eleven new players and eleven returning players has been a different challenge, but I think we're learning from our mistakes slowly but surely," Smith said. Smith also acknowledges that the growing pains, this transitional phase, is a necessary step to take.
Smith understands the difficulty for freshmen to become acclimated with the collegiate level of play. "It's a whole different world when people aren't afraid to put you on the ground, and you shouldn't be worried about what everyone else is thinking about you in the stands. It' just a whole new perspective," Smith said. Smith made it clear that she will always have their back and is looking forward to the day they turn the corner.
Last season the Lady Monarchs played in the travel-friendly confines of the Colonial Athletic Association, where every team was in reasonable proximity to each other, and the trips were far less arduous. But this season, the team has had to venture out. At one point, they had to travel from Norfolk to West Virginia to Florida on the same weekend. Smith has already experienced road trips in the previous competition, so the new schedule is nothing new to her.
"I think it's just a learning curve [for them]. The team never had to play a game and then take a bus ride, then another game, two planes, and then another game. It's just a struggle in general. My club team did a lot of flying, traveling, and played on different parts of the coast. It's always going to be hard to fly, even flying a couple of hours takes a toll on your mental [side of the] game," Smith said. But Smith said that this is something that they will get used to, and it's just another challenge to overcome. If anything, the constant traveling has brought the players closer together. Smith says, "I think this is the first team since I've been here that there's no outside dilemma. There's no struggle to be friends or whatever else. So to have a group of 22 girls genuinely each other is its victory in itself. It's much easier to lose with your friends and grow from it as a group."
Head Coach Joe Perreira confirmed a lot of the sentiments expressed by his junior mid-fielding attacker. After observing a Wednesday morning practice, the yells and shouts through his voice at the ODU Soccer Complex are crystal clear to every player on the field on a hot and humid day. He always wants more out of his players, but until the East Carolina game, that demanding presence didn't pay off in wins.
One of the apparent reasons for the poor record is the absence of Sara Brock, who has been out all year due to a torn hip flexor. She was back on the field against East Carolina and looked solid, and the coach called her as one of the missing pieces to a struggling but resilient puzzle. "It's huge. It's the missing piece. We've played nine games and only scored four goals. You're not going to win many [games that way]. She was our starting forward coming into the fall, and the injury set us back. [We're] trying to get her back into the swing of things. The key is to see her not coming the day after sore or stiff. We've been missing that element in a big way," Perreira said.
As far as the team's attitude is concerned, the never say die attitude, and hardy nature of the team has been there since day one. After going winless in nine straight games, most coaches, while never admitting so, would throw the deck of cards in the air and get ready for next year's hand at the table. That is, most coaches seemingly aren't like Coach Perreira. It seems that he is primed to make a run.
"I think there's still a lot left to play for, so we're not in all that way. Even then, there's still our pride to showcase. We have to go in there with everything we've got, period. I don't care if it's the last game, and there's no hope left. We've got some serious integrity in what we're doing. We have to maintain [that] part," Perreira said. The team takes after the coach's mindset, and it will prove to pay off in the future.
There's plenty of soccer left to play, and it hasn't been the most celebratory season to watch from the sidelines. However, Coach Perreira knows the steps that have to be taken for the Monarchs to reach the mountain top, and one of the first objectives is respectability.
"The thing is the lessons and the process. The fact that we're young is, 'did we learn lessons from this?' So we're just about halfway through this, and now it's 'can we now find a way to turn this around?'
