PSA pg 9 9-12-19
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Soccer Team
Left: Karolym Souza. Above. Coach Jen Bennett. Steve Nalbandian photos.
Jen Bennett was interested in coaching the girls’ soccer team at Putnam Science Academy before there was even an opening for the position. Actually, she was interested before there was even the position of girls’ soccer coach, never mind an opening, as the Mustangs have never had a team before this year.
And Bennet knew full-well what it meant, to start the program from the ground up. She was told very early on about the tremendous success the boys’ soccer team had last year in its first season, rising to No. 8 in the national rankings. She knows there are expectations. But she took the job anyway.
“Oh my God, yes, I think there’s pressure,” the 34-year-old Thompson native said after Wednesday’s initial practice. “I’m fine with it. I’m putting pressure on myself. Because we are the first team here, my expectations are going to be high.”
Bennett made it a point to stress these things at the team’s first meeting on Sept. 3.
But the message may have fallen a little flat.
“I don’t necessarily know if they all knew what I was saying,” Bennett said, noting the language barrier between her and most of her players, who, with one exception, are all international students at the school. She has a couple of players who can translate for her as well, but at the team’s first practice Wednesday, it was more of the same.
“The language barrier is something that’s difficult,” she said. “So hand gestures and showing them what I actually mean and want them to do is something I’m going to have to do a lot more of. We’re working through it and we’ll keep working through it. We’ll figure it out.”
Tais Mota, a junior from Brazil in her first year at PSA, is one of those who will be counted on to fill in the communication gap. She got Bennet’s message loud and clear.
“We’re the first team,” Mota said. “That’s important. We have to get together and put everything that we have into this. I think we had a good first practice. We still have to do a lot to get fit and do whatever we can do to do our best. And it’s really challenging, people from different countries playing together for the first time. But we’ll get used to it.”
“We have people who can play. Our only problem right now is the numbers.”
Ah yes, the numbers. Another obstacle to overcome.
“I thought I was going to have 13 (players),” Bennet said. “I assumed I’d have a goalie. Right now, I only have eight (players), and I don’t have a goalie. I know they’re working on that and we are expecting people to be coming in. My goal for them, assuming we fill in those gaps, is to be a winning team. We have the talent, so if I can find the bodies, we’ll be all right and we can do that.
“It’s not discouraging. It’s not. Not as long as I can push them. If I can push the core…we have a solid core group, which gives me hope. I’ve got talent on this roster, which is a nice place to start. You can see the talent. And most of them have great attitudes and are coachable.
“I have to keep them…wanting to play and seeing a reason to bust their butts for me. If I can get the rest of them to come together as a team, whether we have 11 or 30, we’ll be fine.”
Steve Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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