UD womens soccer Head Coach Mike Tucker had a lot of expectations placed on himself and his team this season. After all, Atlantic-10 insiders picked the Flyers to repeat as conference champions in 2000. There have been twists and turns along the way, but Dayton is currently 11-4 (6-1) and tied for a share of the lead in the A-10 race. With four regular season games to go — all at home — then the conference tournament and hopefully an NCAA birth, we felt it was a good time to ask Coach Tucker for a midseason progress report. While many questions must still be answered, we asked the important ones and Tucker supplied his venerable up-front opinions on what’s happened so far and what’s in store for the remainder of the season. With two important road wins over the weekend — a 4-2 victory over St. Joseph’s and a 7-2 shellacking of Temple — the Flyers might be turning a corner?

UDP: The Flyers were picked to win the Atlantic 10 in 2000. With half of the season over, how far are you from achieving this goal and are you where you thought you’d be at this point prior to the season?

MT: I didn’t really know what our record would be at this point of the season if asked in August. I felt that we would be good, but I also knew that we would be relying on a lot of younger players. Now, I am just about as uncertain about winning the A-10!!! We have been real inconsistent throughout the year. The good news is that we seem to rise to the occasion when playing the stronger teams. We will need to be at our best next weekend when we see UMass and Rhode Island. Having already defeated Xavier, the UMass and URI matches would seem to be the most important in terms of being our strongest competitors for the A-10 crown. We can control our fate, which is good.

UDP: The freshmen trio of Beth McHugh, Erin Showalter, and Nina DiGuardi have anchored the defense for much of the season thus far. Despite their youth, they have posted five shutouts this year with the help of sophomore goalkeeper Steph Weisenfeld. With such a young back line, were you at all apprehensive about their inexperience and have they exceeded expectations?

MT: I definitely had some apprehension about playing the youngsters in the back. And that was BEFORE Nina made her way into the lineup. However, we thought that making a commitment to their talents was best for the long-range benefit of the program. They have worked out beyond my expectations in the short term. And we are expecting continued improvement in this area as they work together and continue to gel as a unit.

UDP: In a recent contest, nine of the 14 Flyers to see action were either freshmen or sophomores. Is the Flyer youth movement something that was planned or have the twists and turns of the season altered the game plan?

MT: I don’t think that there will be much change in this trend in the future. The fact is, the younger players continue to get better and better each year. We plan on recruiting players each year that will challenge for starting positions. If that means that the juniors and seniors take a seat, then so be it. What we have seen is that our more experienced players are starting to work harder in the off- season to keep their spots. This type of competition is healthy. We not only planned this but will continue to try to bring in that caliber of player every year.

UDP: There seems to be no stopping the foot of Missy Gregg, but the rest of the Flyers have accounted for just 42% of the scoring. Was this a concern before the season started and what can be done to help diversify the attack?

MT: Missy has been consistently good – only a couple of teams have “locked her up”. We thought coming into the season that Judi Aschenbrener would take some of the scoring load off Missy, but her injury and rehab have set that back a bit. The rest of the team stops working sometimes, waiting for Missy to do her thing. We are training to get more involvement from many players in the attack. As for Missy – one of the areas of improvement in her game needs to be involving more players in the attack. For her to continue developing into the kind of player who has a future at a higher level, speed of play must be improved.

UDP: Annoying injuries have hampered depth this year. Liz Brown, Judi Aschenbrener, Shannon Kuhl, and others have missed games for various ailments. How is the team’s health as the second half of the season unfolds?

MT: We are getting much better in the injury department. At this time all but Shannon are back and ready to play. Shannon will red-shirt this year, and she will be missed. Judi is playing, but obviously not back to near full-strength. It looks like she will be full go for the A-10 tournament, and that could be a big lift. Of course, Lesley Battiston is also out for the year, and her playing future is somewhat up in the air.

UDP: What singular item is being stressed at every practice, religiously?

MT: Possession. We are not a good team when we merely put the ball out for 50/50s. We are trying to build upon possession, then recognition of scoring chances and attacking them at pace.

UDP: Are any current Flyers playing out of position? Assuming everything else being equal, where would you like to play them on the field?

MT: If you asked them, many would say that they were out of position! It seems that a good many of our players were, or fancy themselves as central midfielders. I don’t really feel that many are out of position, so much as being versatile enough to play in several spots. If recruiting goes as expected, though, some people could move to different spots next year. I don’t care to elaborate on that at this time.

UDP: Coaches are always recruiting for next season. Without going into specifics, what needs do the coaching staff wish to address in the coming year and have those needs changed since the season started?

MT: Every year we look for a dominant central MF player. We hope that we will address that in this upcoming recruiting class. Otherwise, we hope to add a left back with good speed and skills, and one or two outside midfield players with great speed and attacking abilities. Our recruiting class looks great at this time – we expect some commitments within the next few weeks.

UDP: Crowds at Baujan Field have been excellent this year — including several contests topping 1000 fans despite inclement weather along the way. What feedback have you gotten from the players about playing at home?

MT: Our players love the atmosphere at Baujan, particularly the night contests. And the bigger the crowd, the better the atmosphere. It has also been very conducive to recruiting.

UDP: What’s the biggest challenge that stands in the way of an Atlantic-10 title and NCAA birth?

MT: We need to play with more consistency. We very simply need to put everything together for the stretch run. That would include the consistency in effort that has been lacking in some matches. We are not good enough to turn it on and off at our leisure.