Road Tripping

By Josh Griffin

Sports Editor Josh Griffin had the opportunity to travel with the Santa Clara University women's soccer team on their road trip to Portland, where they squared off with rival University of Portland. This is his take on the entire weekend experience with the defending national champions.

Saturday mornings and 6:30 a.m. alarm clocks make a lethal combination. This weekend, however, it meant the start of my weekend with the defending national champion women's soccer team. Sunday's match at the University of Portland was the biggest of the Santa Clara season, with implications on the West Coast Conference Championship and NCAA Tournament seedings.

I met the team at San Jose International Airport at 8 a.m. for Alaska Airlines flight 313 bound for Portland. While the hot topic of discussion this morning was the newly developed Halloween photos, sophomore defender Jessica Ballweg commented on the team's disappointing loss at Pepperdine the previous weekend.

"The team concluded that we didn't play with enough heart last weekend," said Ballweg. "We are all disappointed in our effort."

After walking around our hotel lobby for several minutes, I discovered that we were sharing occupancy with a large group in town for a Harley Davidson convention. These conventions bring out an eclectic group of people whose assortment of tattoos would make Tommy Lee jealous and whose hairstyles make Randy Johnson look like a cover boy for Fashionable Male.

The team quickly reassembled at the vans to head to training. On the ride to the campus on The Bluff, head coach Jerry Smith received a phone call from Chuck Bresnahan, defensive coordinator of the Oakland Raiders, and the two exchanged updates on the weekend's opponents. Coincidentally, Bresnahan squared off with Bay area rival San Francisco 49ers at the same time Sunday as Smith's Broncos would take on the Pilots, but both left their respective games with varying success.

Saturday's practice focused on some basic drills to prepare for Sunday's showdown. After warming up, the team broke into seven-on-seven two-touch, which is a drill in developing possession style soccer. Every time one of the teams made 10 consecutive uninterrupted passes, they were awarded a goal. The team of senior Devvyn Hawkins, junior Tracy Hess, sophomores Leslie Osborne, Megan Kakadelas and Jaclyn Campi and freshmen Micaela Esquivel and Anna Thorburn went 3-0 in the scrimmage.

During practice, injured junior midfielder/forward Veronica Zepeda, who would figure prominently in the Bronco midfield on Sunday, kept busy by kicking the ball around with Brogan and Fiona Smith, the young children of assistant coach Mike Smith. Zepeda traveled throughout the weekend with an ankle boot to support her nagging injuries.

The post-practice lunch consisted of unleashing the 19 soccer players on the local Safeway to provide better variety in food. About half the team and I hopped in the Chinese food line, where the service people immediately became overwhelmed by the number of patrons. This is the nature of traveling with 19 soccer players and their entourage.

Saturday night brought an early hour of sleep, along with two pay-per-view movies. The team met at the vans outside the hotel at 11:30 a.m. Sunday to head back to the University of Portland campus. After checking everyone out of the hotel, the team was off to the showdown.

All of the team's preparation paid off, as the Broncos beat the rival Pilots on a goal scored in the 10th minute by sophomore forward Bree Horvath. The win marked only the second time that Santa Clara has won at Portland in Smith's 16 years as head coach.

The goal was Horvath's second on the season, and came off of a picturesque cross from Kakadelas.

"We scored a very nice goal, on a play set up like something we would have worked on in practice," said Smith.

The match was even throughout, with each team taking control offensively and defensively at different points. Portland outshot Santa Clara 13-4 on the match, with six Pilot shots registered on goal. In front of a large crowd at Merlo Field in Portland, the Broncos had to be happy with their victory.

"All you really want when you come up here is a win," said former Bronco and United States National Team member Brandi Chastain, who was joined in attendance by ex-Pilots and national team members Tiffeny Milbrett and Shannon MacMillan. "Up here, they have the biggest playing field in the league. When you combine the field, fans and this quality of an opponent, you are just looking for a win."

Senior midfielder Aly Wagner returned to the team for the Portland match after playing Saturday with the national team in Seattle. She drove down overnight with Smith and Chastain to play Sunday at 1 p.m. As a result, she played two soccer matches within 18 hours of each other.

"I can't even move," said Wagner. "I'm pretty exhausted. I shouldn't be this tired since I only played 45 minutes yesterday. I don't know what's going on." Wagner's presence was uplifting for the Broncos, and Smith was appreciative of what she had to offer despite her exhaustion.

"Even if she was worn out physically like she was in the last 20 minutes, she still has to be out there because she is the field general," said Smith.

When asked about Wagner's future with U.S. soccer, Chastain was lavish with praise.

"Aly is a very unique and exceptional player," said Chastain after Sunday's match. "She reads the game well and makes plays most others don't even see. She is at a level head and shoulders above other first-timers. She'll be [with the national team] for a decade or more, and get lots of World Cup and Olympic experience."

The victory pushed Santa Clara to a record of 13-4-1 overall, with a 5-1 WCC record. Portland fell to 14-4-1 and 4-2 in conference, which gives Santa Clara the upper hand in contention for the WCC Championship.

After the game, the team met up at BJ's, a restaurant specializing in pizzas and house-made beer. I was joined at dinner by five players - Thorburn, Hess, Zepeda and sophomores Alyssa Sobolik and Lana Bowen. The conversations varied from social to soccer and back again. But the post-game mood was infectious, and the team showed obvious enthusiasm over their earlier triumph.

The conversation eventually turned to my presence as a radio broadcaster. Dinner quickly turned into a session of rapid-fire interrogation, especially when everyone deduced that the soccer broadcasts can be heard back at Santa Clara.

"What kinds of things do you say about us?" I was asked. "Do you have to talk about every play? What terms do you use?"

We then discussed a laundry list of terms that I should begin to incorporate into my future broadcasts and soccer vocabulary. Some of the terminology was familiar, while some was news to me. The team in fact has a vocabulary sheet, provided for them by Smith annually, which summarizes much of the terminology used in the coaching process.

The flight home was uneventful, and I met the team to catch a ride home after the flight. The team was still high in spirits, and I rode back to campus and to the end of my weekend. I told Esquivel that I enjoyed the weekend, and hoped to catch more games on the road.

"You can tell by the mood of the players," said Esquivel. "If we would have lost today, it would be totally quiet in the van. But everyone is excited about the victory."