As the West Virginia Mountaineers women’s soccer team gets ready to officially open their season this Thursday, head coach Nikki Izzo-Brown answered questions from the media in anticipation. Here’s what she had to say on the upcoming season.
On How Missing The NCAA Tournament Last Season Changed The Offseason
“Couple things that I was very mindful of this offseason, we haven’t had an offseason in two years. We played through all of last season, we never stopped playing…. Really our team culture was a real big focus of ours… I just wanted to make sure we had a really good understanding of who we are and what we wanted to do this upcoming season. Pressure is a privilege, 21 straight NCAA tournaments, there’s an expectation now. There’s an expectation of greatness, and when that happens I have to live up to that, because I am the one that is the leader and I should be accountable for that. So I have to go back and reflect and find out where were the breakdowns, because it starts with me, and then do everything in my power to make sure that situation isn’t a repeat. As with any successful organization it starts with your culture and the pillars of your success, and we really had to focus on what was gonna hold us up to get back to the NCAA tournament and to win championships.”
On Talking To The Team About Getting Back To The NCAA Tournament
“Kids came to West Virginia to win championships, Jordan Brewster will tell you it’s a revenge tour… None of these women were satisfied, they have a high standard of excellence and know that getting to the NCAA tournament is absolutely important. Now as you know I’m definitely a coach that wants to focus on positive, but it’s a fact, it’s not a myth that we didn’t make the NCAA tournament. We tied Texas, we beat Texas we’re probably in. So the games about inches, the games about doing the little things to make the big things happen, so that’s something that at the end of the day we talk about, but knowing that moving forward, mentally, physically, technically, tactically we have to be sharper, and in order to be sharper you have to go back to failure. And failure is your best motivator.
On Goals To Improve This Season
“I don’t want the team to be burdened because we didn’t score last year, yes it’s obvious and the spring was a lot about how are we composed in front of the net, how are we finishing quickly, little windows, how are we creating windows, how are we making sure that we are creating windows and creating chances. With that being said, my whole thing is do your job, you know Jordan Brewster, you are a center-back, you cannot be worried about scoring right now, and if you are that’s gonna be a problem. Me and my philosophy and how I’m coaching this group right now, it’s like we’re gonna score right. We have kids that can score, we definitely have to have them have a good understanding of their job, and be consistent. We’re all hunting greatness and greatness is just consistency, and that’s what we lacked last year.
On If The Team Is More Well Balanced This Year
“We have a little bit more depth this year, so that always makes a coach feel a little bit, and the reality is we have depth and no injuries and no coaches.
On Dilary Heredia-Beltran’s Improvement
“We know that she catches everybody’s eye, she’s my shifty, 1v1 dribbler, exciting razzle-dazzle player and she can really create chances and unfortunately she finished like a freshman. So I know that is something that she worked on, this summer she went back and trained, played on a team this summer and trained with high level players… It’s gonna be an exciting year for Dilary, she learned a lot last year.
Where Does Jordan Brewster Need To Improve To Take Next Step
“Every kid needs speed to play, I think when you go from college to pro, it’s always the speed of play, everybody’s thinking on the same high level, so she needs to play the ball quicker. I think technically, just being able to have range in her passing accurately and them just being a barracuda. Because on the next level no one is taking anything lightly, so I think the mentality. She’s focusing on being two-footed and working on her range of passing and now in camp just really moving the ball.
Photo Via: Soccerwire.com
