Women’s soccer looks to rebuild its season in October
Luelana Bustamante
– Staff Writer –
As October started, the STLCC-Meramec Magic’s women’s soccer head coach Jeff Karl was not pleased with the way the team was playing in the regional championship. Up until now, the Magic have a record of 4-8.
In his 28th season as head coach, Karl said that the team is having problems with passing and is having a difficult time scoring goals.
“We are not skilled in certain areas at the game as with what I had had in previous years. We work hard to get up there and get to the attempts, but we are not capitalizing it,” said Karl.
Lauren Moran, one of the captains of the Magic, also thinks the team has problems to solve.
“We have a lot to improve on, like communicating more with each other and moving in one motion and same timing,” said Moran.
Even though the team is not in the place that Karl wants it now, Karl said he will make sure the team will be more productive in October and plays stronger in the playoffs.
“If we play better, we will probably beat some people we are not supposed to. In the end of the day, anything can happen. We are not throwing the towel,” said Karl.
For now, the coach prefers to just look at October’s results.
After winning the game on Oct. 3 against Lake County, the Magic have a record of 1-0 this month.
“I think that when we look at ourselves as an athlete and we know we have three wins and eight losses; that can be a little frustrating. I don’t want the girls to have those feelings constantly. I might as well say we are starting all over and that will give us a different outlook,” said Karl.
Talking about thinking positively, the coach wanted to emphasize the strength of the team.
According to Karl, the team has good players such as midfielder Meghan O’ Sullivan, goalie Rachel Choler and striker Kelsy Rich, who has scored five goals so far.
“I really worked on recruiting Rachel for this program and she has done beyond what I expected from her as a goalie,” said Karl.
According to Karl, the Magic have a good defense right now because that is something he has been focusing on.
However, having a good defense is not enough to Karl.
After the game against Lake County, which the Magic won 3-1, Karl still wasn’t completely happy with the way the girls played.
“We were a better team than this team [Lake County], but I think we just didn’t play the kind of game I believe we can,” said Karl.
According to Karl, the girls are very capable and already have done it a couple of times, but the team needs to develop consistency.
With more than 28 years of experience as a coach, Karl knows his job and how challenging it is to take new players every year and put them together into a squad.
“That’s something I got myself pretty acclaimed by to do. What I try to do is to develop them so they can go on to a four-year school,” said Karl.
According to Karl, being the only coach in the country that has been coaching for so long in this division can make him start to think about retirement.
“My knees, my feet, my ankles are not doing what they used to do, so I don’t know about my future. When it gets time, I will let people know it,” said Karl after his 330th career victory.
