SANTA CLARA, Calif. – As the Broncos women's soccer 2014 spring season has come to an end, head coach Jerry Smith gives an optimistic rundown about how he felt the spring season went. In addition, Smith also highlights a good number of his players this spring for stepping up and improving in areas that needed be to improved on an individual scale.
"As a team, whether we improved or not this spring season is a little bit more volatile, but I felt like we had good improvement this spring," said Smith. "I think we discovered many things about ourselves that work and don't work which will help us grow going into the upcoming fall season, so in all, I am pleased with that."
As the Broncos had to adjust to losing nine seniors this spring, Smith felt very confident in his players in keeping the level of play high as well as not feeling apprehensive about the players that didn't see a lot of time last season. In all, Smith was very pleased with seeing how positively the majority of returning players responded towards needing to step up as well as perform this spring season. "Having as many seniors as we did this past fall and as much turnover as we had is always going to create a little more work, but I think looking back at the spring season we are very pleased with the progress that we've made and feel like we are in a good spot going into the fall," comments Smith.
Furthermore, Smith continues to praise the returning girls on keeping the level of play and team standards at a high. Though the Broncos lost three of their four starting defenders, Smith was happy to see that the returning girls did a great job of filling in those roles and keeping a high defensive standard. "We played some very good teams and we just didn't give up that many goals so I am very pleased with how our back line came together," said Smith.
In addition, Smith was also pleased to see that several of his more experienced girls such as Sofia Huerta, Alyssa Kleiner, and Ashley Doyle took leadership roles and kept a consistent level of play while working on developing other parts of their game. As the more experienced players continue to grow in certain areas of their game, Jenna Roering, Dani Weatherholt, Jordan Jesolva, and Julie Vass delighted Smith for keeping the midfield strong and solid. "Our midfield, we didn't have a whole lot of turnover so, they continued to solidify the middle of the field for us," continued Smith. "A number of players that were either playing in other positions and got moved around or didn't see a lot of playing time came in and showed good individual improvements. We had a lot of opportunities and a lot of players stepping up and taking advantage of it."
As the Broncos head towards their summer break, Smith, along with the girls, is excited to stay here this summer and continue to grow and develop so they can be ready for their upcoming fall season.
Congratulations to the Bronco seniors as they get ready to graduate and pursue their bright future ahead of them.
Go Broncos!
