The women’s club soccer team returned home this week after losing in the semifinal round of a tournament hosted by Clemson University. The N.C. State team had won the tournament the previous three years and the semifinal match was its first defeat of the spring season. Its record for the spring is now 2-3-1. The team finished the fall season with a record of 5-1-4.
Graduate student and former player Blair South coached the team from the spring of 2008 until this past fall and it is now searching for a new coach. South graduated in 2006 and came back to help the team. The team is currently being led both on and off the field by its two co-presidents, Samantha Walker, a senior in biological engineering, and Elizabeth Sodoma, a junior in business, and its vice president, Emily Payne, a junior in accounting.
“The leadership side is new,” Walker said. “But I get to grow from the experience and the responsibility and keep the club going.”
Walker plays goalie while also participating in six other club and intramural sports. Sodoma plays forward in addition to her duties as co-president, and Payne has been playing midfield for the team since her freshman year.
The three of these athletes take care of all of the responsibilities of the club team. Without a coach, they design and instruct the practices and coach the games while participating themselves. Simply getting to play soccer has become much more of a responsibility for the trio. They do all of the club’s paperwork, which includes recording practice attendances, keeping record of the community services in which the club participates, and keeping tabs on expense reports for travel.
They also have to schedule games and tournament appearances, find referees to officiate their home games, and even chalk the field prior to games.
Getting on the team was difficult in and of itself. The squad hosts tryouts in both the spring and the fall. In the fall between 60 and 70 people try out, and in the spring it is typically between 40 and 50, but only about 25 players make the team.
Every year the club gets a big turnout at tryouts from underclassmen that played at their high schools and want to keep playing and also build friendships at the University.
“My friend’s sister played on the club team before me and that’s how I found out information about tryouts,” Caitlin Gehris, a sophomore in history, said. “And I have been playing for 2 years now. I wanted to join a team that was still serious about playing soccer and I wanted to keep playing competitively.”
The girls also expressed how rewarding their experiences with the club have been.
“It’s a positive environment. It’s a good way to be active, be competitive and make friends,” Payne said. “We get to do community service to help and get to play soccer. It is the best of both worlds, I think.”
The club next plays at home on Sunday at 1 p.m. on the upper intramural fields and then it will go to Chapel Hill on April 18 to compete in an indoor seven-on-seven game.
