The Bradsher Beat Wednesday, August 20, 2014 By Bethany Bradsher

Pirates relish being underestimated

By Bethany Bradsher
©2014 Bonesville.net
All rights reserved.

Preseason coaches’ polls are a rite of late summer for fall sports, but that doesn’t mean coaches, players or fans have to put much stock in them. If anything, East Carolina soccer coach Rob Donnenwirth looks at his team’s name, sitting at No. 8 out of 10 teams in their new American Athletic Conference, and he is delighted.

Being underestimated is a plus for Donnenwirth and his team, he said, especially in a new conference in which they are basically an unknown quantity. With one exhibition game in the books, he believes he is looking at a better team than last year, when the Pirates went 9-9-3 and won six out of the last seven games of the season before falling to Colorado College in the Conference USA semifinals.

With 23 returning players, including a year of seasoning for one of the most talented freshmen classes Donnenwirth has ever welcomed to Greenville, the team is ready to defy expectations, and they believe that a home match this Friday against South Carolina is the perfect place to start.

With top teams like Connecticut, Central Florida and Memphis ready to greet them on The American schedule, Donnenwirth scheduled a trial-by-fire warm-up with non-conference opponents like the Gamecocks, considered one of the top three squads in the SEC, and Virginia Tech, which went to the Final Four last year.

As part of the ramp-up to those Division I opponents, the Pirates played an exhibition game against Longwood last Friday, which they won 1-0 on a goal from freshman Courtney Taybron.

“We’ll be ready for them,” Donnenwirth said of South Carolina, which edged out ECU 1-0 in Columbia last year. “They are a good possession team. They love to get a lot of balls into the box, so we need to be ready for that and work on clearances, and we have to be able to keep the ball.”

The focus in the short preseason, Donnenwirth said, has been big-picture game strategy and sharpening the team’s set pieces, but soon the focus will shift to game-preparation mode. The exhibition game was helpful in helping Donnenwirth experiment with different lineups and to watch freshmen like Taybron perform under game-like conditions.

Senior Kelly Miller, who plays outside back and has been with the team since her freshman year, said that the preseason workouts were unusually taxing, but she can already see a difference in the team’s readiness.

“We’re definitely very young, with 10 freshmen, 10 sophomores, so they will have to be key players,” Miller said. “Team chemistry is one of our strongest points. We all get along extremely well. Preseason has been one of the toughest I’ve ever had, but I think it’s benefited us.”

Miller and Kelley Johnson, both senior captains, will help anchor the backfield for the Pirates, and the defense will benefit from their experience and from the speed and consistency of younger players like sophomore Kaitlyn Hite, who was named first team All-Conference-USA last season and selected preseason all-conference by the American.

In the midfield, Donnenwirth will look to another senior captain, Stephanie Seagraves, to find some scoring opportunities as an attacking center midfielder, and sophomore Lana Spitler is expected to be a force from the right mid position. Up top, junior Kendall Frey will look to build on her team-high six goals and 13 points from 2013 at center forward, and freshman Brittany Fary is coming out of the gate looking strong on offense as well, Donnenwirth said.

With some early-season injuries and a young roster, the learning curve will continue through the non-conference slate, but Miller and her teammates have confidence in their preparation and their ability to go toe-to-toe with anyone. For fans who can get out to the soccer stadium on Friday night, that attitude could help start off the season in style.

“It’s definitely a very different feeling going in this year,” Miller said. “I’ve always had that drive to perform hard, but now, this is it. I want this team to be successful more than anything. I want to see us go really far and make some history in the new conference.”

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PAGE UPDATED 08/20/14 02:36 AM.