Spring Soccer Kicks Off
by Abe Auer, Men’s Soccer Writer
This time of year may belong to baseball and March Madness, but that does not deter the hard work and enthusiasm of the Wisconsin men’s soccer team during the spring season. UW started team practices last week and will now start scrimmages this Sunday with a free and open-to-the-public event at the McClain Center.
“What I do is I try to get as good as games as we can get,” head coach Jeff Rohrman said. “I think this weekend, we have a club event coming up, we got some of the top U-18, and top U-17 teams out there that are going to come on campus and get the chance to play against us, and we’re going to have to show them what we’re about. It’s kind of a two-fold, duel purpose kind of weekend; play some good games but at the same time show some of these clubs how we’re capable of playing.”
Coach Rohrman strategically plans the spring season.
“Because we’re a fall sport, we get x amount of days throughout the course of year,” he explained. “Depending on how many we use in the fall we can use the rest of them in the spring. What I do is I back track from May 1, because May 1 is the day the NCAA allows our guys to go play with club teams. I want to train as a team up until May 1st so those guys have the freedom to go to Milwaukee and train or play with their club team, and they’re not resting for two weeks and then going to play with a club team…”
In a few weeks the Badgers will welcome two A-League teams, the Milwaukee Wave United and Minnesota Thunder, along with UW-Milwaukee to the McClain center for another nine-sided indoor event.
Wisconsin will also travel to St. Louis to play St. Louis and possibly Southwest Missouri State on the same day. In April the team will go to Marquette for a full-sided round-robin outdoor event and then wrap up the spring season at the end of April in Milwaukee for a full scrimmage against the Milwaukee Wave United.
“I want to play a very tough schedule in the spring where our guys are getting pushed and challenged every time they take the field,” Rohrman said.
Because of the size of the team, Rohrman will split the Badger squad in two for tournament play.
“The other challenge with the spring, depending on your numbers, like this year we have larger numbers,” Rohrman said, “so we’re going to play some nine sided where now we have two particular teams; and red team and a white team per se, so it makes sense from that vantage point to try to do some creative things to maximize the playing dates that you get because you are limited to only five in the spring.”
Not only is the spring season a time for the team to come back together, but it is also a chance for players to individually show their progress from then end of last season.
“I think for us, the spring has always been an opportunity for everybody to elevate their game,” said Rohrman. “Usually we get two or three guys who make a significant jump. I always point to two years ago when I first got here, Eric Hanson ? he made an incredible jump. He pretty much said to everyone that he was going to be the starting goalkeeper, and he went ahead and did it, and he’s done a good job for us since then.”
The spring season is also a time to for players to be tested in new positions. With a new and talented recruiting class coming in this fall it is important for the coaching staff to see who can play where in order to best accommodate the team.
UW, players and coaching together, is looking forward to kicking off another season.
“[The team] is excited about [the spring season],” Rohrman said, “and I think we should get some very good and positive things coming out of this spring.”
