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Former Valley soccer standouts making an impact at Pittsburgh
By CHARLES GROVE
pittsburgh
The University of Pittsburgh women’s soccer team celebrated their first winning season this fall since 2009 and two local athletes played large roles in that success.
Juliana Vazquez from Cardinal Mooney and Seyla Perez from Howland each finished up their freshmen seasons for a Panthers team that finished the season 10-7-1, rebounding from a 6-12 campaign a season ago.
Even though the Panthers found success this year, most of it was during non-conference play. Pitt ended the year with a 4-6 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference play, leaving both girls striving for more come fall of 2016.
“It’s a plus to have a winning season but there’s always room for improvement,” Vazquez said. “Obviously we’d like to be more competitive in the ACC and we would’ve liked to have been able to pull out a few more wins because we definitely should’ve had more wins than we finished with.”
The Panthers ended the season on a four-game skid as they ran into one of the most difficult end-of-season schedules in the country. Pitt fell to Clemson, Duke, Virginia Tech and Virginia, all of whom were nationally ranked and were outscored 15-3 in those four games. That skid has the team hungry to do what they need to do this offseason so as to not have a repeat performance like that in following years.
“We started off well in ACC play but then we hit the Florida States, the Virginia Techs and the Dukes,” Perez said. “We were in a lot of those games until the end but we just didn’t have enough to pull through.”
Both Perez and Vazquez had standout moments this season as both scored crucial goals to seal victories for the Panthers during their double-digit win season. Vazquez scored off a free-kick to beat Liberty 2-1 while Perez scored a header off of a corner kick to put their 2-0 win over North Carolina State on ice.
“It was such a great moment,” Vazquez said. “I remember a lot about it. One of our forwards took a shot that hit off the hand of an opponent so we had a free kick right outside the box. I was trying to pass the free kick off to one of our older players saying, ‘You got it. Just focus.” but then I heard the coaches yell my name. And when it went in it was just crazy. My team surrounded me and I just won’t forget it.”
Vazquez’s family, including her brother Nick, who was drafted to play baseball out of Pitt by the Colorado Rockies, was there in person to see the goal and the day ended with the prefect celebration for Julie – Chipotle.
“That was celebration enough for me,” Vazquez laughed.
While athletically a freshman, this was Perez’s second year of college after suffering an IT-band injury last season, forcing her to sit out after just a handful of games. Perez rehabbed the rest of the season and the entire offseason just to get back to game form for this past season.
“I couldn’t run, I couldn’t really do anything,” Perez said. “By the time I could jog the season was nearly over. It took awhile to get healthy and it still bothers me now, I played through a lot of pain this year. It wasn’t nearly as bad, but I’ve been very prone to muscle injuries.”
Perez said she has to take extra care of her body just to make sure she’s able to perform come game time – a regiment that includes lots of extra stretching and a high focus on recovering properly after games.
“I have to be very cautious,” Perez said. “It definitely takes a lot out of you to play against some of the best competition in the country. Recovery is one of the most important things and it’s something I have to do a lot more now. Stretching out, icing myself, doing a lot of stretching, making sure you’re hydrated and eating correctly are especially crucial for me.”
For Pitt head coach, Greg Miller, he says he’s in near constant contact with Perez about how she’s feeling physically to make sure she’s still on the way to a full recovery.
“I check in with her every day,” Miller said. “She’s a tough kid and wants to be out there. She just needs to make sure she gets enough rest and recovery this offseason to make sure she’s 100 percent healthy next fall.”
Miller said he had to make decisions on how much time Perez would play each game based on her injury, which most of the time he knew she was able to play though.
“You never want to put a kid at the risk of injury,” Miller said. “If it’s not something that’s getting worse, and in her case she wasn’t, then it was something we just let her play through.”
With the offseason upon the Panthers soccer team, Perez and Vazquez are now focused on being able to compete with the top teams in the ACC, knowing that they’ll have to be a more physical team than they were this fall.
“Our physicality needs to improve for sure,” Perez said. “A lot of teams in the ACC will literally fight for every ball. Part of improving upon that is getting into the weight room but a lot of it is just being more confident and not being timid on the field.”
Vazquez wants to see her and her teammates remain strident in their own style of play, something she says her team got away from against some of the heavyweights in the ACC.
“You don’t start playing conference teams until you’re into the season so you’re already more tired physically and you’re not what you were in non-conference play and on top of that it’s hard not to be intimidated by some of the best players in the country,” she said. “We kind of got away from our style in some of those games. We want to hold the ball and play a possession style on the ground connecting passes from the back to the middle and towards the forwards.”
The Panthers have until August until their next regular season, and Perez wants to make sure she doesn’t endure the next offseason with the bitter taste of four straight defeats in her mouth again.
“During that losing streak, we kind of already knew what we had to do this offseason but it definitely stung to end on that streak,” she said. “Going through that shows you you don’t want to end on it again.”