Indian Hills breaks in new soccer programs

By IAN SMITH, Courier sports writer

September 06, 2007 04:22 pm

— OTTUMWA — The good news: Indian Hills debuted its soccer programs.
The bad news: The Warriors lost by a combined score of 33-0.
The Indian Hills women lost 18-0 to Iowa Western, while the men fell 15-0 in the two programs inaugural games Wednesday afternoon at the Walsh Soccer Complex in Ottumwa.
Iowa Western established its dominance right from the start in the women’s game. Using an array of give-and-go and through passes Iowa Western quickly led 2-0 in the first ten minutes. At Halftime, the score read 10-0.
“It’s what I expected,” women’s coach Rod Campbell said.
The Warriors bounced back in the second half and despite giving up another eight goals, they were much better defensively.
“I expected a better second half because the first half was the first time they have ever played against anybody,” Campbell said. “Overall I am proud of them.”
Indian Hills didn’t have much preparation time prior to their first game of the season against the NJCAA No. 2 ranked team. As recently as two weeks ago, the team listed only nine players on the roster. Wednesday’s game saw three players playing for the first time this season — in a game or in practice.
Matched up with an Iowa Western team mimicking a hockey-style subbing pattern, it spelled trouble.
“Given the fact they switched every ten minutes on us, overall I thought we did all right,” Campbell said. “We had a lot of mistakes that we have to correct, but for the first game ever, that’s expected.”
The blowout isn’t a total loss for the Warriors. Campbell said the team can take some valuable teaching lessons from the defeat — including how to communicate on the field.
David Schwent’s men’s team faired a little better in the opening minutes of its opener. The Warriors held off an attacking Iowa Western team, but suffered a letdown defensively after the first couple of goals.
“The first 20 minutes, up until the third goal, we were playing just like we should be playing,” Schwent said. “Then we got our heads down a little bit. We need some consistency.”
Iowa Western clearly outmatched Indian Hills in speed and skill — scoring on a number of breakaway goals in a 7-0 first half.
In the second half, Indian Hills continued to allow goals, but also had a few scoring chances of its own.
Captain Wes McDonald drilled the crossbar on a long shot from outside the box. Later, Abram Hunter sailed a shot just over the net.
“You could tell that we put stuff together and as it started to build, everybody would kind of get that intensity up,” Schwent said. “Then we would kind of lose [the intensity] a little bit when we didn’t score.”
The learning curve for Indian Hills will be season-long, but Schwent hopes his team can compete with Iowa Western down the road.
“This is definitely the level we are looking to get to, so it’s good to have right out of the gate,” the first-year coach said. “Hey, this is what we are supposed to be doing.”
The men’s and women’s teams travel to Iowa Central this Saturday.

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