2011 USC Soccer

2011 USC WOM SENIO MF Carly Butcher E MF/F Ashley Freyer very year, soccer season wraps up in November for all but four teams in the nation. Ever since 2007, no one in the USC women's soccer program makes any other plans until mid-December. The Trojans are the first and only Pac-10 team ever to win a women's soccer national championship. It happened in head coach Ali Khosroshahin's first year at the helm of the USC program, and he and the Women of Troy are now four seasons removed from that 2007 title run, but postseason plans have remained inked on Trojan calendars. Now with one player remaining from that championship roster and a depth charge of youth and experience, the 2011 edition of the USC women's soccer team enters the fast-approaching season with all eyes trained on a seventh consecutive trip to the NCAA Tournament. "I think we have a good balance right now of experience, youth, speed, and depth at vital positions, which should allow us to be a much more consistent team," Khosroshahin said. "Our senior class has the best knowledge of our plan and they're committed to executing it and teaching it to the younger ones." In order to make another deep run — and force a welcome interruption of Thanksgiving festivities — Khosroshahin is insistent that his squad shakes off the "comeback kid" moniker it forced upon itself last season. The 2010 Trojans gave up the first goal of the game in half their matches last season. Time to tidy that up, Khosroshahin says. "One of the biggest problems we had last year was we didn't know which team would show up on a given day. We saw that in the scorelines. We would show tremendously well against one group and turn around and do poorly against another group. In 11 of our 22 games last year, we were chasing where we had to come from behind. Those are signs of an inconsistent team that lacks maturity. But what do you expect when over half the roster is new?" Granted, there will still be several new faces on the pitch for 2011. But five of USC's top seven scorers in 2010 were either freshmen or sophomores. That sure-footed unit returns, along with leading scorer Ashli Sandoval — a redshirt senior who stands as the remaining holdout from the 2007 NCAA Championship team — to further assuage Khosroshahin's worries of youthful inconsistency. As freshmen, Autumn Altamirano, Haley Boysen and Elizabeth Eddy accounted for a third of USC's goal-scoring in 2010. Now sophomores with some extra savvy, that trio combines forces with Sandoval, senior Ashley Freyer and juniors Courtney Garcia and Samantha Johnson as the Trojans bring back seven of their MF Brittany Kerridge top eight scorers. "That is the style of play that we have," Khosroshahin said. "We create lots of scoring opportunities for different players, and it's their job to step up and finish those opportunities. We're unpredictable, and this year we have more understanding of what we want to do." Thirteen different Women of Troy got to the back of the net to tally 39 goals in 2010, while the USC defensive lines allowed 25 goals against rookie goalkeeper Shelby Church. She'll be back between the pipes for the Trojans — another young gun with a year at Troy under her belt but also a call-up to the U.S. Under-20 National Team camp. Boysen, too, got the call into the Under-20 camp, elevating the sophomore midfielder onto the USA radar where her fellow midfielders Carly Butcher and Brittany Kerridge also have been. Butcher and Kerridge are cornerstones in the USC gameplan, standing tall as senior leaders for the Women of Troy along with Freyer and defender Claire Schloemer. Entering her fifth season at USC, Sandoval is the veteran of a group of highly experienced and knowledgable Trojan seniors. Khosroshahin tabs those five seniors, along with the hard-working redshirt sophomore Morgan Morrow, as the governing body onfield and off for the 2011 Women of Troy. With that respected leadership in place, the new charges are coming along quickly. "We feel that this team has matured in this offseason and with the addition of this class of newcomers," Khosroshahin said. "This class has helped with depth and they're a fairly mature group. This is also one of the smarter classes that we've had." Versatility and adaptability is key down the line, as USC has Sandoval, Morrow and Chelsea Buehning all on the mend from knee injuries. Sophomore Mia Bruno will be sidelined for the year following a torn ACL sustained in the spring; and incoming freshman Heather Davis also will sit out the season after tearing her ACL in high school. Khosroshahin has a real depth charge in his set of 2011 newcomers, which rounds out as seven true freshmen and three transfers. They'll officially don Cardinal and Gold for the first time on August 19 for USC's home opener at McAlister Field, where you'll see the 2011 Women of Troy gameplan take shape. FORWARDS Let's start at the top. That's where USC has a battalion of talent ready to rattle opposing defenses and ring up the goal tally for the Trojans. Senior Ashley Freyer and Samantha Johnson have been the most prolific scorers of the bunch, with 17 career goals between them. But the resumes of the USC strikers across the • 2 • 2007 NCAA CHAMPS • 2007 NCAA CHAMPS • 2007 NCAA CHAMPS • 201 1 Season Outlook

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