INTERNATIONAL FLAIR SPICES UP UAPB SOCCER SQUAD

By Troy Schulte/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF

Roberto Mazza knew a little bit about the Arkansas-Pine Bluff women’s soccer program even before he took over as coach last season. As an assistant at Southwestern Athletic Conference-rival Mississippi Valley State during the 2006 season, he was on the delivering end of a blowout victory.

“We killed them, I think, 13-0,” Mazza recalled yesterday.

It was during that game, played at Regional Park, where the Canadian-born Mazza realized just how much work needed to be done to the UAPB soccer program. But, Mazza also thought, escalating toward being a competive program within the SWAC was possible.

“We’re at a good stage right now,” Mazza said. “We’ve got a new field on campus, now it’s much better for recruiting. We have a locker room right next door.”

The Golden Lions open Mazza’s second season at 5 p.m. tonight in Jonesboro against Arkansas State (1-0), a team that went 3-13-2 last year. And though Mazza, nor his 10 newcomers on the roster, are predicting catastrophic improvements over last year’s 2-11 finish, they all expect to be better.

Picked by league coaches to finish fourth out of five teams in the SWAC Western Division, Mazza expects his team to reach the conference tournament for the first time in program history.

“We want to make realistic goals,” said freshman midfielder Jade West. “We’re not going to say we want to win the SWAC right away, because it takes time.”

West was one of the first players Mazza contaced when he took the job last summer. He remembers seeing her play in a showcase in Toronto while recruiting for Mississippi Valley State. He asked West to make a visit, she liked what she saw and told Mazza she would play for him. Upon hearing that news, Mazza made West his team captain for this season on the spot.

West’s commitment started a chain reaction of new international players to the Golden Lions. Three teammates on her club team in Ontario are now on the team with her. Defenders Chelsea Gordon and Courtney Godfrey, as well as midfielder Erika Forbes all played with West on the Pickering Falcons for four seasons.

“I think if they weren’t here I would probably be crying right now,” West said. “It’s good to have a little piece of home.”

Midfielder Rachel Harker is also a freshman from Canada, while UAPB’s roster also includes Emma Johnson, from Leeds, England and two players from Jamaica, Shanek Douglas and Shantel Brown. The fact that almost everybody on the team is new has made the transition a lot easier.

Mazza planned for it to be that way this year, though. He knew when he got here last year that, in order to improve the program, the talent level had to increase.

“I went to the athletic director (Skip Perkins) and I said ‘Do you want a winning program?’” Mazza said. “He’s new, everybody wants to start winning, we’re looking for new things to happen. It was, bascially, I settle for what I had, or let’s move forward.”

So Mazza brought in an almost entirely new team and, next year, plans to bring in about six more players, with which he’ll have a deep roster. This year, he said, his team has a good starting lineup, but little depth.

“I trust him,” said Harker, who is nursing a pulled quadricep, but should play tonight. “And so I came down and gave it a try. Now, I’m having a great time. No regrets at all.”