Lady Archers soccer team has high hopes for 2012 season
By: Spencer Gleason
-Sports Editor-
The 2011 Lady Archers soccer campaign ended just shy of a national tournament appearance. While finishing their inaugural season 11-10-0, the Lady Archers took their fourth seeded rank in the region to the Region XVI Tournament, but fell to Metropolitan Community College-Blue River, 3-0, in the championship game. Losing that game just did one thing. It made them hungrier for the 2012 season to begin.
“Well I think that you are always going to have some inspiration to do a little bit more,” head coach Juergen Huettner said after their last preseason practice. “Last year, we lost in the championship game. If we just take it one step further, then we would like to be in the championship game again and we would like to win it. I think that we have a quality team to do that, too.”
Huettner, who coached the STLCC-Forest Park Lady Highlanders soccer team from 2009-2010, is in his second year coaching the STLCC Lady Archers. Aside from coaching at STLCC, Huettner has also been the women’s soccer head coach for Crusaders at Althoff Catholic High School in Bellville, Ill. since 2001.
Huettner’s Lady Archers squad, which holds 21 girls, is predominantly incoming freshman. With only five returning sophomores, Huettner was able to recruit local talent to bolster his roster. While finding players in small groups or pairs from the same high schools, Huettner has found the right mix of players.
“I like it because you can tell that the chemistry at practice is great because the kids already know each other. A lot of the girls played together on the same select teams, in the off-season. They have a lot of camaraderie going on,” Huettner said. “The ones that felt a little bit awkward were probably the five returnees because they were walking into a group of kids that already knew each other. But our five returnees are such great kids. It has helped out a great deal.”
Sophomore captain, Katie Foytlin, who scored 5 goals in 2011 and led the team with 17 assists, is ready for the season to begin.
“This year we are pretty stacked and have a good team,” Foytlin said. “I am definitely excited to go back to the regional tournament. I think we are going to go farther.”
Of the 16 incoming players, four graduated from Seckman High School together. Donna Jolliff, along with Jessica Smugala, Taylor Giese and Alyssa Thiessen all donned the blue and gold for the Jaguars.
Although the college game is another level up from the high school game, Jolliff, who was tied for third in goals scored in the Suburban South Conference, with 13, is up for the challenge.
“It is a lot quicker,” Jolliff said. “It is more intense. There is more endurance. It is very physical. I like that. It is not something new to me because that is how I always play so I like coming in here and actually being pushed more to play harder and better.”
Jolliff, who was a midfielder in high school, is also capable of playing forward.
“[Playing] forward is definitely my strong suit,” Jolliff said, “but [when playing] midfield, I am very good at directing how the play is going to go and I am pretty quick.”
The interchanging of positions between players is something that Huettner considers a unique attribute of his 2012 Lady Archers team.
“Coaching becomes fun too because then all of a sudden, you literally start taking influence on what is going to happen on the field,” Huettner said. “As opposed to having a really good team that just takes its place on the field or if you have a really bad team where it is what it is and as a coach, your hands are tied. This year we have so much flexibility. I think we can literally manipulate some things.”
While only time will tell how the 2012 Lady Archers season pans out, Huettner recalls another team that his current players now remind him of — his 2010 undefeated Althoff Lady Crusaders that won the state championship and who were ranked third in the nation by ESPN.
“I am dreamer and you have to be to believe in doing things like that,” Huettner said. “Before that season, somebody asked me, ‘What do you think about this team?’ and I said this team is ‘very capable.’ I did not know those things — being undefeated and winning the state championship — would happen. Those things take a lot of luck.
I can say this. I think that if this team has some luck come their way and we play the way I think we are capable of playing, I think that there would be nothing wrong to say that this team could be one of the STLCC women’s soccer teams that picks up on some glory days back in the 1990s. My dream would be that we have a long postseason run.”
