SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Santa Clara women's soccer wrapped-up its spring season with a commanding 4-1 win over Stanford on May 3. It is the third consecutive spring that the Broncos have taken down the Cardinal. Sofia Huerta, Dani Weatherholt, Morgan Marlborough and Julie Johnston each scored once.
"The team played very well against Stanford," said Santa Clara head coach Jerry Smith. "At the end of the fall season or the spring season it is very nice to have things come together for you. We approach the games like the students try to approach their final exams; let's put everything together. It was a good 4-1 win over a very good Stanford team. The three goal scorers will be contributing to a number of goals going forward."
In the Broncos first game of the spring, they took down Cal 4-1 but Smith felt the team bailed themselves out with four goals while not playing well. An important part of the spring season is to improve from game to game and Smith feels that his team accomplished just that.
"In the first game we really played poorly against Cal and bailed ourselves out," explained Smith. "Against Stanford we scored four goals but also played very well. We saw a very good improvement from the beginning of the spring season to the end. It's great for the players to see that they can trust in the development process and if they continue to trust in the process and believe in themselves, at the end of the season things will come together."
Another benefit of the spring season is that teams can experiment with new formations and new positions. Smith took full advantage of that, and while not every experiment was successful, he learned some things that didn't work so the team can focus on other areas.
"We tried a couple of formations this spring and we found one that didn't work so we won't have to fiddle with that next fall," said Smith. "We also got to play some players at different positions and learn quite a bit about that. We certainly had some leaders establish themselves this spring. At the end of the year we always select our captains for the next fall and we have a really good idea of who those are going to be."