Stafford looking for balance out of the soccer team

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Central Michigan women’s soccer head coach Neil Stafford knows he has a deep and talented team and wants to see production from everyone.

“I want to be a more balanced team this season,” he said. “I don’t want to be one dimensional. We want to be as versatile as we can be. You want to pose a threat in different parts of the field.”

Last season, forward Laura Twidle was the team’s leading scorer with eight goals and two assists.

The next three leading point scorers were midfielder Ashley Mejilla (five goals and one assist), defender Liesel Toth (four goals and three assists) and midfielder Valerie Prause (three goals and four assists); those totals were good for almost 46 percent of the teams scoring.

Furthermore, of the 19 girls who saw game action last season, only nine of them had more than one goal.

In order for CMU to be the balanced team it wants to be, Stafford said the team will need to get more of a contribution from other people in the lineup.

“In the past we have had defenders who have scored,” he said. “We have had attacking midfielders make huge contributions both offensively and defensively. I really want to focus on not relying on just one group of girls.”

Stafford is, working on “functional“ things that focus on the girls interchanging positions.

“We’re trying to get the girls to work together in their respective units,” he said. “If we can get all three or four different units working together collectively, were going to produce as a team.”

So far it seems to have had an affect on the team. Through the first two games the team has scored four goals, none of them by someone who scored a goal last season.

Midfielder Autumn Hawkins scored two goals in as many games and sophomore defender Estee Outcalt and freshmen Emily Cooksey and Laura Gosse scored the first goals of their careers over the weekend.

Even though it has only been a couple games, a change in their philosophy may be contributing to the different results.

“Coach Stafford brings a lot of creativity to the game,” Toth said. “He’s OK with us making mistakes as long as were trying to make something happen. He’s all about us seeing options instead of playing methodically. I think we have developed a lot as players individually of seeing other things that we normally wouldn’t have seen because of his creativity.”