BLACKSBURG – As the women's soccer team hits its halfway point of preseason training, and with one scrimmage under its belt and another one coming up tomorrow, it's a good time to catch up with the Hokies' head coach Charles "Chugger" Adair to get a sense of how his team has been performing and what the plans looks like moving forward.
The Hokies won their first scrimmage of 2018, 1-0, over George Mason on Tuesday night at Thompson Field, as Mikayla Mance scored the matches' lone goal. Tech will head to Lynchburg, Virginia, Friday for that other scrimmage, taking on the Liberty Flames with a 6 p.m. start before preparing for its season opener next Friday. The Hokies will host a four-team tournament August 17-19, with Georgetown and Georgia kicking it off at 5 p.m. Friday before Tech plays San Diego in the nightcap at 7:30 p.m.
Q: What are your thoughts on where the team is halfway through the preseason?
CA: "The week's been good. The energy's been good. The effort from the kids has been good. We have a good number of kids that are fit, so we've been pretty solid and the mentality has been real good as well. I thought we did some real good things in the scrimmage (Tuesday night). We possessed OK, but still created some chances. We showed some good diversity within our game."
Q: Has anyone surprised you among the freshman class?
CA: "What I think has been really good among the freshman group is they came in fit and ready to roll and excited to play. I think we had some nerves at the start of the scrimmage from some of them, but that's something we'll have to work through within the group. I think Emily Gray, Emmalee McCarter, Molly Feighan, Emma Steigerwald, those four have been ones that have really done well. S.A. Phillips, in goal, she's done a great job. So, there's a group of them that has been picking up some good stuff and asserting themselves right off the bat."
Q: What did you take away from the Tuesday's scrimmage?
CA: "I think we did a good job earning the shutout. That's always one of our goals, to shut teams out and we did that, defending in the end as a group. I do think we need to do a better job of defending as a unit throughout the game, and some individual defending, which we'll work on. I'm definitely happy with the shutout and I think S.A. made a couple of good saves and Zoe (Foxhall) was good as well. I thought we struggled with the passing at the start of the game, I think we made a lot of unforced errors and just seemed a little bit off in our possession.
"As the game went on, we had some really good moments with some crisp combination plays, and created some chances off of those. We got better, got into the flow and got through some of those nerves and butterflies. I think Emily Gray made some really nice runs out of the midfield, which was key for us. Allyson Brown had some really good moments up front for us. Grace Sklopan played well, coming in and playing multiple positions, another one of those freshmen that is playing well this preseason. It wasn't a 10 out of 10 for us, but it was the first game out of the shoot, so we'll take it and move on from it."
Q: What do you think will be your approach in Friday's scrimmage at Liberty?
CA: "Tuesday night was an opportunity for some of the kids to play and we tried to focus on some of the kids who were fittest, sharpest and ready to play so far. Some of the other kids are still trying to find their fitness and trying to find their way back and we'll try and blend in as we can. At this point, we only have this one more scrimmage, so we're going to have to have kids play more minutes of the rotation it's going to be and go from there. Tuesday night, there were some kids that really helped themselves and some who didn't, unfortunately."
Q: At this point, as a team, what do you need to work on in moving towards the first match of the regular season?
CA: "The first thing we need to work on is individual defending and defending as a group, higher up the field, we struggled with that (Tuesday) night. I think we left our defenders a little too much to do on the defensive side, so we'll work on that aspect and getting that mentally right. I think we created some chances, so just taking those chances. We had two or three chances – hit the post on one and probably missed a sitter or two, which we could have had to put a few more numbers on the board, but we missed those. Also, just trying to get into the flow at the start of the game, I think we lacked that so just trying to figure those issues out.
"I'm just glad to get our first game behind us. We've been training a lot, and the team has been here working hard and putting the effort in. It was good to get that competition, get those butterflies out and get that behind us. And now we know what we need to work on. We see it in training. We see the good things and we see the bad things, but to see it in a game, that's where the push is and we've got to make sure we can adjust."