UCI NOTEBOOK : Her Goal a Kick for Women’s Soccer Team
It was only one measly goal, and Dawn Evans is half-embarrassed at the commotion over it.
A St. Mary’s player tried to make a pass back to her goalkeeper in a game Sunday against UC Irvine. Evans, playing forward, cut in front of the goalie, took the ball away and put it into the empty net.
There was a momentary delay, and then exultation. For a split second, it was as if the Irvine players hadn’t realized what had happened. Evans had scored the Anteaters’ first goal of the season.
After six games, Irvine’s women’s soccer team has a record of 0-5-1.
But Evans’ goal, fluky as it was, brought laughter and enthusiasm to a team that had a 5-11-4 record last season and has had five coaches in the past two years.
“That was really a great feeling,” said Alicia Miller, the Anteater goalkeeper who feels the pressure of knowing Irvine is not going to score often.
“Everybody felt pretty positive after that game,” said Kerry McGrath, another player on the team.
Evans, who didn’t play soccer during her first two seasons at Irvine, instead choosing to work nearly 40 hours a week to pay expenses as she plans for law school, smiles cautiously when asked about it.
“I had an open net,” said Evans, who played mostly halfback last season in her first year on the team. “I should have scored. . . . I think it’s funny. It’s not like I’m a leading scorer or have some huge tally of goals.”
Miller, a junior from Estancia High School, is faced with trying to keep the games close, even when Irvine isn’t scoring. She has 71 saves in six games this season, and has allowed 11 goals, a 1.5 goals-against average.
“It’s frustrating,” Miller said. “We’re trying to keep in mind that we’ve gone through all the changes in coaches. We’re trying to keep our heads up about it and look forward to next year.”
Next year, they hope to have the same coach. Ray Smith, who took the job just before the season, had been an assistant coach at Biola University and coach of the boys’ team at Katella High School.
“Ray’s here to stay,” Miller said.
“Everybody really likes Ray,” McGrath said. “He’s a very positive person.”
Irvine’s last coach, Janu Juarez, lasted more than a season. He coached for three years and left after the 1988 season.
The next coach, Lisa Fraser, coached the team during spring practice but left after a short time when offered the head coaching job at Washington State, where the program has financial resources far better than Irvine.
Left without a coach in the last weeks before the start of the 1989 season, Irvine asked Steve Shaw, a former member of the men’s team who was finishing his degree, to take the job for the season.
This summer, Irvine hired Keith Comfort, a former assistant at UC Davis who was attending graduate school at Colorado State. Comfort accepted the job one day, then called back the next to renege.
Then Irvine hired Smith.
“He realized that we’re not going to be No. 1,” McGrath said. “But if we lose, 1-0, to a team we lost to, 7-0, last year, that’s improvement. We’re getting better.”
With Miller in goal, Irvine has allowed more than three goals only once this season. Three times, they have lost, 1-0.
Kim Collins, the only senior on a women’s volleyball team heavy with freshmen and sophomores, is moving closer to several school records.
With 49 kills in three matches last week, she moved to within two kills of Kris Roberts (1985-88) in second place on the career list with 1,042, and is closing in on Ali Wood’s (1986-89) school record of 1,183. Collins is also among the leaders in attack attempts and digs.
Her match against Loyola Marymount last week was her best during a week that earned her player of the week honors in the Big West Conference, considered the top volleyball conference in the country.
“I’ve never been a stat hound,” Collins said. “Sure, it feels good to say I had this many kills or digs, but there’s nothing there if our team loses.”
Collins was a hurdler and relay sprinter at Tustin High School, but switched to volleyball after a knee injury ended her track career.
Now Collins loves volleyball, including the beach variety. She would like to end her career by making it back to the NCAA tournament, as the team did two years ago when Roberts, a middle blocker, was the leader of the team.
“We’ll repeat that this year, if it’s in my power,” Collins said. “Physically right now, I’d say we’re a great team. Mentally . . . we need to build confidence. I think so many people point out that they’re so young that they feel they should be worried.”
Anteater notes
Irvine’s water polo team, the defending NCAA champion, fell from fifth to seventh in the top 20 poll of the American Water Polo Coaches Assn. after finishing sixth in its own tournament last weekend. The Anteaters went 2-3 against a field that included seven of the top eight teams. Irvine lost its last three games in the tournament, each by one goal. UCLA defeated USC in the final. . . . Aaron Mascorro, an Irvine student, finished first in the Fresno State Invitational cross-country meet, but it meant no points for Irvine. Mascorro was competing unattached, while he and Coach Vince O’Boyle try to decide whether he should sit out this season and return to use his final year of eligibility next year. If Mascorro competes this year he might qualify for the NCAA championships as an individual, O’Boyle said. If he competes next year, the team, a year older, would have an opportunity to qualify. O’Boyle, eager not to waste Mascorro’s excellent conditioning work this summer, expects to make a decision within a week.
