Alex Sessmus

Staff Writer

 

Looking to continue their winning ways, the Florida Southern Women’s soccer team heads into the 2013-2014 season with heads held high.

Coach Brittany Jones enters her second season as the Lady Mocs head coach, and remains upbeat about the difficult schedule.

“We have great deal of potential this year. One of the toughest schedules in the whole south region, I am very excited about the team’s prospects,”            Jones said.

Jones boasts a large number of returning starters to help with the season and even adds seven new players to the team for the 2013-2014 season.

Selene Nelson, Sheila Ramos, Kristy Legoas, Kelsey Berki, Kellee Brown and Margot Chowansky all join the team as freshmen. While Taylor Chitty is a transfer student from Indiana-Purdue-Fort Wayne.

In order to get these players to mesh well on the field, Coach Jones focuses on creating a family atmosphere within the team.

She spends time individually with her players to understand how best to motivate them, and strives to create an inward motivation for success within each of her athletes.

Particularly this season, with such a tough schedule, the Lady Mocs hope team chemistry will play an important factor in separating them on the scoreboard from their opponents.

“You can’t treat everyone the same, which is why I try to have a personal relationship with each of my players,” Jones said.

To Jones, physical training is not everything to succeed in a game.

“Hopefully this mentorship will transcend onto the field this season and will produce better results. Each player is cared about and they are more than just a student athlete,” Jones said.

Even more, Jones adds Siggi Nagele as an assistant coach to her staff. Nagele, a German born native, brings with experience from both professional coaching and youth coaching in the Olympic Development Program.

He spent 23 years as a staff coach with the Florida Youth Soccer Association.

He established himself on the collegiate level with the Eckerd Women’s team where compile an impressive 52-46-4 record.

“Nagele was a natural addition to the team. He brings a wealth of experience to the team. His talents serve to compliment me as a coach and will no doubt produce better results in our team,” Jones said.

Sophomore, Midfielder Christine Knudstrup, expressed her expectations on the Lady Mocs upcoming games.

“This weekend is going to give us a good foundation of what we need to work on and remind us that we really have a lot of potential,” Knudstrup    said.

The Mocs played their first pair of games in Valdosta, Georgia on the sixth and seventh against Valdosta State and North Georgia College.

Both teams placed well last year within their respective conferences and proved to be difficult opponents to overcome.

Although the weekend brought the Mocs a pair of disappointing 1-0 score -lines, they are looking to make a quick rebound for their home game September 13th against University of the Incarnate Word.

“I believe we have a lot of skilled players and we just need to start thinking on the same wavelength,”Knudstrup said.

Knudstrup suggest some ideas to improve the team’s results.

“We just need to start playing with a faster pace and connecting passes through the mid-field and into the final third,” Knudstrup said.

Sept. 15th the Lady Mocs will play defending Division II national champions, University of West Florida.

“This is going to be a really exciting time for us,” Jones said.

What Jones wants for this season is more support from FSC soccer fans to encourage the team to achieve their goals.

“We would love to have a large crowd as we kick off our season,” Jones said.

 

 

Photo courtesy of fscmocs.com