Cowgirls Kickoff Shortened Season with Bedlam Unknowns on Friday
STILLWATER -- It's a good thing that a soccer roster has 30 plus athletes. It's a good thing that Oklahoma State has a veteran and a responsible team that has had just five positive tests for COVID-19 since coming back on campus in late July for the start of practice.
Oh that practice has dragged on as a season that was originally scheduled to start on Aug. 21 with an exhibition game at TCU will finally start on Sept. 11 with Bedlam in Norman.
"I really feel for our girls, especially our freshmen because this is not what they signed up for," Cowgirls head coach Colin Carmichael told me on the radio on Thursday, the day before the openeing match. "We've talked to our kids a lot and they've done a great job of staying out of situations that put them and our team at risk. I keep telling them that we're fortunate because we're playing matches and there a lot of teams and players out there that aren't."
Carmichael told me that with four positives heading into this week that he will has ve to shuffle around some. He knows he will have stalwarts on this team like Grace Yochum, who was a first-team All-Big 12 player as a sophomore last season and scored 11 goals, the most goals ever scored by a sophomore at OSU. Kim Rodriguez is back as a defender after earning All-Big 12 and All-America honors last season. Camy Huddleston and Hannah Webb are other talented veterans and team leaders.
Oklahoma State won the league title last season with a 16-3-3 record overall and 7-1-1 in league play. Oklahoma, which will have a brand new coach in Mark Carr finished eighth last season with an 8-9-3 record overall and 3-5-1 in Big 12 action. Oklahoma State leads the Bedlam series of soccer 26-9-4.
"We really are going into this blind in that they have a first-year coach and they brought in a bunch of transfer players," Carmichael said. "We don't have any video as they got started in spring but were cut short like everybody else and we have no non conference games. They probably went back and looked at some of our games last year to scout our alignment. We've really focused our preparation on our girls being as good as they can be. I think we are."
The match starts at 7 p.m. on the Oklahoma campus at John Crain Field. The only television is streaming on the Oklahoma athletics website (soonersports.com.)
The Big 12 is one of the few conferences contending fall sports other than football and Carmichael has been asked on several ocassions his thought on the NCAA planning for spring championships in some of the traditional fall sports like soccer.
“The NCAA certainly have a plan, and I’m hopeful that plan comes to fruition because we’d love to be part if their championship if it’s in the fall or spring or whenever it may be,” said Carmichael in his 16th season as head coach. “I think there’s still a lot of uncertainty with all of sports. You can intend to have a tournament, doesn’t mean it’s gonna come about. I think the Big 12’s attitude was these kids deserve the right to play, and let’s give them that opportunity. Let’s play as many games as we can this fall, and if and when there’s an NCAA Championship in the spring, we’ll be playing in the spring as well ready to go.”
Soccer both semesters, why not?
