After having to opt out of the fall season due to a lack of available players, the NC State women’s soccer team is set to return to the field next month for what head coach Tim Santoro is calling an “enhanced spring” with nine games on the schedule as opposed to the usual five. 

While the team was not able to play games in the fall, those who were on campus continued to train together. When the news came out that the team would be opting out of the fall season, Santoro said it would still feel like a logical progression, with the team training for a few months after a long hiatus before playing games again, something he still believes to be true.

“We know it has been awhile since we played, but after having so much time off, losing most of the spring and having the summer where we couldn’t be together, the fall was good just to get back to train,” Santoro said. “You hate to go a year without playing, but it was a logical progression for us after being away from each other for so long, to come back and train.”

The “numbers crunch,” as Santoro described the situation in the fall, was due in large part to two things: injuries and international players not being able to return to the U.S.. Now, Santoro says his team is healthy as they can be and all three returning internationals are back with the team after being away in the fall.

Although the trio of internationals, senior Lulu Guttenberger, junior Toni Starova and freshman Maria Echezarreta were unable to train with their teammates during the fall, it did not stop them from training on their own.

“They were able to train while they were back home, and I did FaceTime and Zoom with them often,” Santoro said. “I kept in touch with them and talked to them. They also had to deal with lockdowns here and there and restrictions. So they were kind of going through similar stuff to what we were.”

Although his roster for the spring season is at nearly full strength, the team will look a lot different in the fall, with roughly a dozen new additions being added in this year’s signing class, three of which are early enrollees who are on the roster and training with the team but are unable to play in the spring games. 

With the exclusion of the three early enrollees, Brianna Weber, Sarah Arnold and Kayla Siddiqi, Santoro will have 15 field players and three goalkeepers to pick from for the nine spring games. While the roster is small, it means young players will benefit from a lot of playing time, allowing them to prepare for the fall season.

That preparation for the fall is Santoro’s main focus for this slate of games.

“Every time you step on the field, these kids are driven to win, we all want to win…,” Santoro said. “But for me, the focus is just getting these kids on the field to start putting the pieces together, having them learn what it is like playing at the next level. From that standpoint, it is going to be a great learning experience for them and even for me and my staff. Trying to figure out how we are going to fit it all together.”

One area where Santoro’s team is particularly young is the forward line; only two of his attacking group have experience in the Wolfpack program: sophomores Leyah Hall-Robinson and Jameese Joseph, both of whom will have to transition from freshmen watching and learning from players like Tziarra King and Kia Rankin, to being the mentors themselves.

“It is definitely something new for me,” Hall-Robinson said. “I have been working on my leadership and my role on the team. It is a change, but I am adjusting well. We have three freshmen and adjusting with them is going really well. It is a change, but as time goes on, it will get better.”

In addition to Hall-Robinson and Joseph, Santoro has the options of junior transfer Denea Antoine, freshmen Mia Vaughn and Cara Elmendorf to play up front.

“The fall gave a great chance for Denea, Leyah, Jameese and a couple of the regular freshmen, Mia Vaughn and Cara Elmendorf; those five got to train together all fall, and they are training together now,” Santoro said. “We will get a combination between that group that will be good down the line. They need to play games together, and that is going to take a little bit of time.”

Santoro is confident in the skill he has at every position, even if experience is lacking within his young roster.

“There is no position I am concerned about in terms of talent, but experience in some spots will be a little light, but that is what this spring is really beneficial for,” Santoro said. “To be able to play eight or nine games in the spring before next fall, it is a really nice progression. If there was ever a year I wanted a big spring, it is this one. To be able to have this many games before next fall, this is the perfect time for that.” 

While the spring season provides a good opportunity to put the pieces together before the next fall season, last fall players were able to focus on individual skills, as opposed to preparing for games, allowing them to progress individually and as a team.

“It was different from a regular season, but almost the same,” Hall-Robinson said. “We were training the same, except we focused on individual work instead of what we would do to prepare for a game.”

With nearly a year between the team’s final spring game of 2020 and its first scheduled spring game of 2020, there is no doubt the Wolfpack will be ready when Feb. 7 rolls around and it takes the field against Old Dominion.

“We are really excited,” Hall-Robinson said. “When we were watching all of the other teams in the ACC play last season, we were a little upset. Now, since we can play, we are really excited and ready to play.”