Northern Michigan University women’s soccer team preps for season opener
MARQUETTE — It’s almost the first day of spring, so that means it’s soccer season in the Upper Peninsula.
Normally, that is not the case, but thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, that’s the situation the Northern Michigan University women’s program finds itself in as the Wildcats open their season Friday at Grand Valley State.
First-year head coach Jon Sandoval likes what he sees so far out of his team, especially considering the situation it’s in.
“I think the biggest thing has just been the team chemistry,” he said in a Zoom interview Monday. “Going back to what Mike (NMU volleyball coach Mike Lozier) was mentioning in his interview, we brought in, I think, 12 new players. You’ve got two first-year coaches here as well as head of the program. There’s a lot going on and in the first semester, it was difficult to manufacture some of those team events and to get them to kind of gel and to understand where they’re going to be on the field.
“And that’s really what we’ve worked through over the last eight months or so, just trying to get everything correct and trying to get everyone to be on the same page.
“Even with the returners, you’re teaching them a new brand, a new style of soccer and anytime you come in and you’re going to be the first one through the wall, you’re going to get a little bloody.
“So I think we’ve gone through a lot of growing pains especially within the last couple weeks because now positions are starting to get cemented and that can cause some issues within a program, especially one that’s as vulnerable as ours, given again the circumstances that we’ve mentioned.
“However, the way that they’ve dealt with it, I can only sing to their praise just based on our leadership, not only our formal captains, but we see a lot of informal roles that are coming up and individuals taking control and ownership of the program.
“We have this saying in our program, it’s a player-coached culture is better than a coach-coached culture. And we’re really seeing those things develop now.”
Looking at his new, young lineup, Sandoval said he has a few players that he thinks will make an impact this year, or already have done so, the most prominent being midfielder Caroline Halonen.
“She’s definitely a standout,” he said. “She’s a terrific athlete and we’ve asked her to play a different role this year than what she’s used to. We were a little hesitant on how she was going to embrace that role, but she’s an absolute all-star. She’s definitely changed the way we’ve played and she’s been an absolute professional about those things, too.
“And one of the things that we’ve mentioned to her, too as well, was that she is a terrific athlete and what we’ve challenged her to do is to develop a little bit more leadership skills. She’s been more of a vocal presence. She’s always been an individual who can lead by example, but now, she’s developing a little bit more of her leadership skills and that’s been an absolute joy to watch.
“Another one you probably aren’t familiar with is Shenae Kreps, she’s a(n NCAA) Division II transfer from Queen’s College. She’ll be our No. 1 goalkeeper this year. Especially with where we are in the program, a little bit of our age, we are a little bit young and a lot of players have not played in a college game before, we’re going to need Shenae to make a save or two, a large one to keep us up in some certain matches.
“So I think those two are going to be definitely key players. The other thing to kind of keep an eye on is two of our midfielders this year will be true freshmen as well. Brooke Pietila, she’s from Brighton, Michigan, and Stephanie Trujillo is from California, so we’ll look to them, see how quickly they can get engaged into the game and get caught up to speed in terms of the college level. The quicker they can get going, I think the better off we’ll be in the midfield.”
The Wildcats were dealt a bit of a blow to start the season as they were picked to finish ninth in the 10-team GLIAC. And Sandoval said he definitely paid attention to the poll.
“I don’t think it’s a reflection,” the coach said. “If anything, it’s something that we use as a chip on our shoulder. We talk about it quite often in our program that we’re different and we are. We have different obstacles than other teams in our conference and one of the other sayings we have in our program is don’t be a victim. And right now, we’re not allowing this ‘nine’ to be a victim.
“But do I see it when I close my eyes? Do I see ‘nine’ when I fall asleep? Yes, I see it everywhere I go. It’s the first number that pops up into my mind. So we’re using it as fuel right now.”
Ryan Stieg can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 252. His email address is rstieg@miningjournal.net.