Soccer team opens without a coach

With the start of the new soccer season, the Cal State Long Beach women's team has already had to deal with the lack of depth at goalkeeper and no coach.

However, the team managed to pull itself together and open the season with a victory against San Diego State, 3-1, on Sunday.

The team has been working without a coach since the beginning of the season and has been organizing its own schedule and practices. Many of the players are new and have not had much playing time together. They have been working under the interim coaching of o ne of the players, Robyn Kobayashi.

Depth will be a benefit for the team which is fielding 23 players for its roster. However, goalkeeper will not share this luxury. Nancy Wiley is the only legitimate keeper on the team. Erin Mitchell, a fielder, i s getting a crash course at the position to be the backup. Mitchell did play in the victory over SDSU.

According to Tina Shimizu, the team's defense was better than they had anticipated and may help the team to rely less on having to score a lot o f goals.

"At first we were concentrating on defense, but after seeing us play on Sunday we're strong at both," Shimizu said. "We've got really good scorers and defense."

Shimizu, a veteran of the team, thinks that this may be one of the better groups they have put together. In addition to having a lot of depth, the team is also skilled and versatile at a lot of different positions.

The team is currently still trying to lock down positions and working to get into game shape.

"We're still working on it (getting in shape), but it's a lot better than the first week of school," Shimizu said.

A few of the players who could make an impact are Marcella Witte, Noelle Rost and Angeliki Giakas. According to Shimizu, Rost is a strong s triker and Giakas will help with good ball control. Rost scored two of the goals in the SDSU victory.

The team goes on the road for the next five games before returning for a home game on Oct. 9. The team will compete in the National Collegiate C lub Soccer Association and has its sights on the regionals in Las Vegas in November.

"Our goal is to get to Vegas and we think we have a really good chance of doing that," Shimizu said.