Getting acquainted

Mondays are killers.

For most high school girls soccer coaches in the Greater Spokane League, Monday is a light day. The players drag themselves onto the practice pitch on dead legs and slog through the workout.

Not because they’ve been out hitting the party circuit.

Nope. For the best players in the Greater Spokane League, weekends are big-time soccer time. Premier and select teams play their games on the weekend. Games, plural.

“You always hope no one gets hurt playing on the weekend, and I’m sure the premier and select coaches worry the same way about them getting hurt during the week,” University coach Kevin Houston said. “On Mondays the girls are usually pretty tired and beaten up from the weekend, so you learn to take it a little easy.”

And, the coach said, you learn to pace your players through the course of the season.

“My first couple seasons, I really burned out my best players,” he said. “They’re the kinds of kids who hate coming off the field and I let them stay out there longer than I should have. When we got into the playoffs, they had dead legs because they were just exhausted.

“I’ve learned to suffer through them yelling at me when I take them out of games. You want them to have something left for the postseason.”

It’s a lesson first-year East Valley coach Andres Monrroy already picked up.

“It’s a little difficult trying to get to know your players when they come in on Monday and are worn out from the weekend,” he said.

Getting to know players is what the first few weeks of the season is all about.

Houston graduated three players who, between them, were picked first team All-GSL eight times, and together reached the state playoffs all four years.

At Central Valley, coach Brandon Deyarmin must replace nine graduated seniors.

East Valley’s biggest loss from last year is coach Jeff Rose, who resigned in June and is replaced by Andres Monrroy, who moved to Spokane from Beaverton, Ore.,

And West Valley moves from the Greater Spokane League to the Great Northern League, where the Eagles will no longer be outnumbered by the competition.

Greater Spokane League

Central Valley Bears

The Bears will be cublike to start the season.

Deyarmin has eight first-year varsity players on his roster, including first-year seniors Chelsea Linerud (forward) and Amanda Meza (defender).

“We’re a little inexperienced, but this is a good group of kids and they’re really excited and enthusiastic,” he said. “The great thing about this group is that they get along really well. No cliques. They all really like each other and enjoy playing together.”

As usual, most of the squad plays club soccer, giving the Bears a depth of experience far beyond its years.

“The club soccer coaches in our area really work with us to make this a positive experience for the kids. That’s not the case in other parts of the GSL,” Deyarmin said. “With so many of them playing on the weekends we try to keep our Monday practices pretty light. We try to work inside and do cardio work or something like that. I know some schools just don’t practice on Mondays.”

Seniors Jennifer Dimmler (midfield), Jessica Willard (defender/midfield), Jessica Davis (defender/midfield), Shayla Roberts (defender), and Annie Weisbeck (forward) all return from last year.

East Valley Knights

Andres Monrroy takes over a State 3A playoff team from a year ago that graduated just three seniors.

“I watched some of their games from last year on videotape,” the first-year coach said. “They play together very well and they play hard. All I’m really doing is helping them to improve their individual soccer skills.”

A year ago the Knights were the most successful Class 3A team in the Class 4A-dominant league, going 7-6 in league, 9-10 overall. This year, the competition changes, with rivals West Valley, Cheney and Clarkston all dropping down to Class 2A and the Great Northern League. East Valley now battles Mt. Spokane and North Central for a Class 3A playoff berth.

The biggest battle in preseason has been in goal, where sophomore Brooke Myre and senior Hannah Krogseth vie to replace the graduated Megan Como. Myre backed up Como and played defense as a freshman. Krogseth took a year off from playing soccer last season.

Defender Kaylyn Plumb earned All-GSL honors a year ago.

“This team was pretty young a year ago,” Monrroy said. “That experience really puts them ahead this year.”

University Titans

For each of Houston’s first four years at U-Hi, the coach rolled out the soccer balls at the start of the season and spent the rest of the year watching Tonya Schnibbe, Alex Marquard and Kayla Miller kick them around.

The trio worked their way into the starting lineup as freshmen and stayed there through four seasons and four berths in the State 4A playoffs – getting better individually and pushing to make their teammates better at the same time.

As seniors each was a first-team All-Greater Spokane League selection and Schnibbe was singled out as the league’s offensive Most Valuable Player. Schnibbe and Marquard each were three-time first-team picks; Miller was twice picked all-league first team.

And now they’re gone.

“It was different starting the season without them,” Houston laughed. “We have a different personality without them, I must say.”

A different personality, yes. But the tradition of success Schnibbe, Marquard and Miller, along with a host of players who played before them, remains strong.

If anything, Houston said, practice intensity has gone up a notch.

“I think our drills have gone even faster than last year,” he said. “I think if I held a foot race between last year’s team and this year’s team, this group would be significantly faster. We have a lot more speed and quickness than we’ve had before.”

Schnibbe, Marquard and Miller weren’t the only first-team All-GSL picks Houston had a year ago.

Rachel Lopez (Sr., F) and Abby Goss (Jr., MF/F) also were first-team picks.

A total of five first-team all-league players and the offensive MVP powered the Titans to a 13-0 league record a year ago and a 16-2 season.

“Rachel and Abby both have really good speed, so we’ll still be pretty fast on the attack,” last year’s coach-of-the-year said. “I’m looking at moving (junior) Katy Sloyer from defense into the midfield to help replace what we lost there (Marquard).”

Senior Sara Santiago returns to help anchor the midfield, and senior Allison Seymour takes over in goal for the graduated Alli Meyer.

Great Northern League

West Valley

Make no mistake. The Eagles competed well in the GSL. They just didn’t have many wins to show for it.

Last year West Valley was 3-10 in league play, 7-11 overall.

“We liked where we were in the GSL,” coach Shelli Totten said. “Where we got into trouble was we would invariably have five or 10 minute letdown in a game where we’d give up a couple goals. I was like, ‘If I could just have those five minutes back …’ “

The past few seasons the Eagles scheduled nonleague opponents out of the GNL, and had good success.

“I think the girls are excited about playing in this league,” Totten said. “This is where we belong, but that’s not to say it’s going to be easy. This is a tough league. Pullman is always tough, Cheney is going to be tough, Deer Park is going to be tough. But it’s not going to be like David going up against Goliath every week.”

Pullman is the defending GNL champion, running through the 12-game league season undefeated a year ago.

West Valley is down in numbers this year. Totten has 27 girls, where she would prefer to have 35 or 40 to fill out varsity and junior varsity rosters.

“I have a pretty good group of sophomores, including Kayla Courchaine (defender), who played varsity for us last year,” Totten said. “And I have a couple freshmen who have some experience. We’re going to be a little young, but I think we can compete.”