Pre-Season-Day 6!

The team earned a well deserved day off today with an intense past 4 days of training! A good breakfast at our local favorite eatery, Yogi's, followed by a photo shoot, treatments and then a fun adventure in beautiful downtown Ft. Worth for dinner (We'll make sure to post some of the pictures as the team learns their way around).

Yesterday's scrimmage finished up strong, with Mark's White team edging Michelle's Purple group 2-1 in 3-mini games. We played a bunch of different formations and combinations of players to just see where players fit in. We'll continue with that this week as we settle into things.

While the team rests today, we'll be evaluating the video from yesterday and breaking it down, preparing for another great week!

Pre-Season-Day 5!

The team bounced back great after an intense fitness session with Dr. Upton for the second half of training last night. Dr. Upton is our strength & conditioning coach, who also happens to be in the kinesiology department here at TCU. Dr. Upton has a background of working with MLS and NFL teams, as well as a long list of professional athletes. He develops our fitness program based on the specifics of every one of our players and the positions. It is so soccer specific, the girls love it. It's demanding, but the results are unbelievable.

This morning, we jumped into more of an offensive mindset, working on combinations and committing to the attack. Even as the 7th training session in 4 day's, the level was extremely good. I've never had a group that could slide into 1 touch possession as well as this. We ask all of our players to be involved in the attack, so our backs have to be as comfortable getting forward as our strikers. For some of our freshman this is still a tough concept, but they started to adjust very well.

We'll finish up today with an inter squad game. Coach Mark and Coach Michelle drafted teams last night and will coach them. We'll turn on the scoreboard and the music-the whole production, which is unlike any other college soccer atmosphere-our scoreboard is a huge jumbotron that we can show replays or movies on! (Tomorrow the girls get to video their player introductions-it's like your at an NBA game for that) The only thing missing tonight will be the 1500 people we usually have in the stands. Should be fun though and give the girls a taste of the atmosphere.

Pre-Season-Day 4!

Another, great morning session this morning! We continued our focus on team defending, which was proved to be a competitive battlefield. Even though we're 3 day's into field training, haven't heard one player complain about the soreness and bumps and bruises.

Last night we had birthday cake for Michelle Nguyen-which was great by the way-I think I ate half of it.

Also, got a nice phone call today from our one player still missing from camp, Lizzy Karoly, who played her last game in Iceland this evening before she heads back to join us. Can't wait to get her back early next week.

Busy day today, so more details tomorrow, as we'll break out some uniforms and play a purple/white scrimmage!

Pre-Season- Day 3!

After a spirited session last night, that concluded with a full field scrimmage, the team was back at it this morning. We focused on just a refresher course in 1v1 defending-which is one of the main focuses for our program. An intense match of a game we call "the moat", where 2 teams battle back and forth in 1v1 matches, trying to get across the moat to their teammates brought out a tremendous competition level. It was great to see the defensive toughness of 4 of our sophomores-Katie Taylor, Nicki Wilbur, Cheryl Martin and Julia Slater-start to come out!

We followed that up with one of our teams favorite games: 2 minutes, 2 goals. We break the group into 3 teams and 2 teams play for 2 minutes or 2 goals-whoever wins stays on. What was great was to see the players starting to get to know we each other and combinations starting to arise-a couple of players really stood out-Sophomore Transfer Emma Geyer, Junior Kelly Faerber and Freshman Chelsey Wilgenburg.

We then finished up with a finishing game I stole from good buddy, KC Crabb, called "30 seconds". We play 2v2 inside the 18 yard box with goals on each end line. The object is score as many goals as you can, with a whistle blown every 30 seconds to switch all 4 players off the field. It's fast, intense, and competitive-one of the best finishing games ever. It was actually all tied up until in the very end when Junior Michelle Nguyen-whose 20th birthday is today-bent a quick shot around a defender and into the upper 90 to win it!

Was a great morning, and we get back at it this evening with a classroom session to start sharing our system and then a field session where we'll cover zonal defending!

Pre-Season-Day 2!

After a great team dinner last night, we finally were able to get on the field for the first time this morning. Was a great session! The team did extremely well in our fitness-most everyone had been here working out already, so this wasn't a surprise!

We then got into things a bit with the ball, where we just wanted to give them a chance to play and settle in. I was extremely pleased with the technical ability in possession and then we got going to goal, had some great finishes.

What I was most impressed with was the leadership and communication on the field-this group has matured quite a bit in that area and it was apparent.

Some of the highlights from today's training included:
A great flank service from senior Caroline Starns, who found freshman Chelsey Wilgenburg on the back post for a great finish from her head...

Freshman Alex Mechalske's work rate in the fitness...

Sophomore Chelsea Cody-never giving the ball away and hooking up with old club teammate Jordan Calhoun, for a couple of great goals...

Sophomore goalkeeper Kelsey Walters two point blank saves...

There were a ton more and even more ahead!

Day 1-Meeting Day!

It's always an exciting day, the first day of a new season. We welcomed 10 new freshman onto campus this morning and got them settled into Moncrief dorm prior to our 10 am start. Dorms here at TCU are definitely different than when I was in school, besides being immaculate, the size of the rooms is unbelievable. They're also all suites, so the girls just have 2 rooms that share a bathroom-which I found out today they don't even have to clean-TCU Housing Services comes through once a week to clean them. I certainly could have used that with my roommates back in the day!

Then it's off to meetings-a welcome meeting where we learned we have 2 players that can lick their elbows; a compliance meeting to make sure we don't break any NCAA rules; A meeting with our athletic trainer, Lauren Crawford, so everyone can stay healthy and then the fun ones-equipment-it's like Christmas in August-and team pictures. A team dinner tonight at my house, where all of the new girls get meet my wife and Zak, my 2-year-old little boy.

Training starts tomorrow 8:00 AM where we get down to the business of winning a championship!

Pre-Season Right Around The Corner!

Well our countdown to pre-season has started, as the girls report for camp next Tuesday. It's always fun and exciting to be on the brink of a new year. We spent the day dealing with all of the little things making sure we're ready to kick off next week. So balls were pumped, signs were hung, nets put on goals, equipment laid out.

The field is cut perfectly and ready to go!