Women’s club soccer fights to play

EVE COHEN/Daily Bruin Women’s soccer club team lines up to
defend a kick. These Bruins have put in a year long effort to turn
an unofficial club team into an organized club.

By Elizabeth Newman
Daily Bruin Contributor
[email protected]

For the members of the UCLA women’s club soccer team, it
was a long road to the first official games they played this past
weekend on Marshall Field.

Over one year ago, Marion Wise and Erinn Goletz, now club
co-presidents, realized that “if we wanted to play on an
organized club team, surely others did, too.”

However, forming such a team was not so simple. Wise and Goletz
struggled for an entire year while battling with the bureaucratic
red tape at the Wooden Center before their idea became a
reality.

“(Club sport organizers at) The John Wooden Center
didn’t want to create a “˜double’ team, since UCLA
already has women’s varsity soccer ““ but there are a
number of clubs that are also played on the varsity level
here,” Goletz said.

Wise and Goletz heavily researched the topic to counter
Wooden’s resistance to the idea, including the schools that
also had club teams they could compete against — including USC,
San Diego State, UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego. The
Wooden Center finally consented in fall quarter of 2001 and the
team became official.

After using word-of-mouth to garner interest from players in the
dorms, practices began winter quarter. Although the
“club” label may fool some, many players on the team
were recruited to play varsity soccer at other universities.

Co-captain and midfielder Beth Saur turned down significant
financial aid from Amherst College, a probable full-ride to Trinity
College in Texas, and opportunities to be on UCSD and
Pomona’s varsity teams.

“I didn’t want to make soccer my whole life,”
she said. “I wanted the whole college experience.”

Goalkeeper Chrissy Chavez likewise turned down a spot on the
soccer teams at Occidental College and Columbia University in New
York to come to UCLA because “I wanted the big school with
the big name.”

Goletz, a forward, played Division I soccer for Creighton
University in Nebraska, but transferred to UCLA for a more
comprehensive college experience, like Saur and Chavez ““ even
if that meant not playing soccer for the varsity team.

Despite the team’s talent, one of Wise’s and
Goletz’s main challenges was finding a head coach. Third-year
UCLA student Keith Yanov now holds the position. According to Wise,
“he is extremely knowledgeable and experienced, and the team
loves him.”

This is Yanov’s first head coaching position, but he has
many years of playing experience, including a current semi-pro team
in the Pacific League.

Yanov’s approach with the fledgling team has been
“not to win but to play well together, focus on the fun
aspect, and play everyone. We’re definitely working on team
chemistry, which comes with time when everyone’s on the same
page.”

“Next year we will focus on winning,” he said.

With no club league in existence, the team has played the
Torrance Women’s League but quickly exhausted the
competition. Wise is trying to start a women’s club soccer
league and is working with other schools to have one in place by
next year.

Hopefully, the league will encompass club teams from UCSD, UCSB,
UCD and Cal as well as Cal State Long Beach, San Diego State, USC
and possibly University of Arizona and University of the
Pacific.

However, with no intramural field at UCLA, organizing home games
““ much less practice ““ is a battle. The quarter system
also prevents the team from practicing for at least one month while
schools on the semester system have already started.

This makes Wise’s eventual goal of reaching the regional
and then national tournament competition in November exceptionally
challenging.

“Sometimes on Tuesdays and Thursdays we have 23 girls at
practice and one-sixth of the field,” she said.

“We’re not accustomed to playing the whole width in
practice because they split the field lengthwise so when we go out
for a game, we have to readjust.”

However, the desire to play ““ and compete ““ is not
easily stifled. Despite a lack of an official league, Wise and
Goletz organized two weekends worth of competition for the team.
UCD traveled to Drake Stadium on May 5, and this past Saturday the
club played UCSB and UCSD.

Although their first game against the Aggies resulted in a 0-2
loss, the Bruins were passing well and took six shots on goal
compared to Davis’ four in the second half.

Yanov said “we weren’t looking for a victory,
although there are definite things we can work on … We played
well, they were just too good at intercepting the ball.”

The Bruins’ doubleheader on Saturday resulted in a loss to
the Gauchos and a tie with the Tritons. During the game against
UCSB, the Bruins’ sweeper, Jen Taylor, was sent to the UCLA
Medical Center Emergency Room after falling in the first half and
breaking her ankle in four places. In the five minutes after Taylor
was injured, Santa Barbara scored three goals.

“We just totally lost our focus, from playing soccer to
dwelling on the fact that someone was hurt, and we didn’t
have another sweeper” said Wise. The game ended in a 4-1
loss.

The Bruins’ game against San Diego ended on a more
promising note in a 2-2 tie. In a clean pass, senior Beth Leverett
stole a throw from the San Diego keeper and passed to Goletz, who
finished the play with a seemingly effortless goal to bring the
score to 2-1. The Bruins went on to block a penalty kick by UCSD
and after a turnover, tied the game.

The women who make up this squad clearly love the sport. Saur, a
senior, said she previously “lived on the IM field” and
is “ecstatic that everyone is enjoying themselves so much.
The formation of this team has just been an awesome
experience.”

Wise echoes that sentiment, and has high hopes for the team.
“We have a lot of talent, and everyone’s out here
because they really want to be” she said.

Goletz added, “We have big goals for ourselves ““ no
pun intended.”