Coach Richter guides the USA Women to Gold Medal at the 2013 Maccabiah Games

From July 7-31st, I had the privilege of coaching the US women’s soccer in the 19th Maccabiah Games. The Maccabiah is an international Jewish athletic competition, the third largest sporting competition in the world. It takes place every four years in Israel and are often called "the Jewish Olympics."  

Team USA was comprised of 20 women from around the country, college and post-college. The women were hard-working, dedicated and committed to our goal of a gold medal.  Team USA achieved that goal, beating Israel 6-1 in the Gold Medal round.

We held training camp from July 7-11, during which the team trained twice a day in preparation for the tournament.  The team came in very fit, which made it easy to adjust to the hot temperatures (90’s) and humidity.  The team quickly became united, both on and off the field and I knew from camp this team could accomplish great things.   We finished camp by scrimmaging ASA Tel Aviv, the Israeli club champions.  Both teams had quality scoring opportunities, unfortunately ASA came out on top 2-1.  It was a good test for the team and gave us some areas to improve upon for the upcoming tournament.  

Before the competition started, the team had a unique opportunity to participate in the Israel Connect program from July 12-17. During this time, the team traveled to cultural and historic sites to experience firsthand their own connection with Israel and Judaism. Some of the sites we visited included Masada (and ancient fortification), the Old City of Jerusalem, the Dead Sea and Yad Vashem (Holocaust Museum).  

Then it was time to do what we came to do when the 19^th Maccabiah Games began on July 18.  We had a very challenging schedule playing 6 games in 8 days.  There were 7 teams in the tournament so we played each team once.  The top two teams in the group advanced to the Gold Medal game.  The team opened the games with an 8-0 win over Australia.   Team USA went 5-0-1 in group play, taking first place in the group.  In the gold medal match, we started really strong, scoring in the 6th minute and the 15th minute to give us the early lead and never stopped pressuring them for the rest of the game.   We scored some great goals and played our best match of the tournament.

I am so fortunate to have been a part of these games, coach an amazing group of women and come home with the Gold.  I also gained valuable experience in leadership and coaching at the international level and skills that I can bring home to Kent State University to help our team continue to be successful.

Senior Morgan Mah on the start of her last college season

By Morgan Mah
Senior from Edmonton, Alberta

Preseason marks the beginning of a new team, year and expectations.

The bar is set high so we as a team have something to strive for. Every year is a challenge that brings about a different experience and with every experience comes new learning opportunities.

Some key things that help get ourselves through preseason are: focus, determination and remembering why you still love to play the beautiful game. Each year you gain a little more confidence in yourself and things seem to come more naturally.

As I go into my fourth preseason, this spells the beginning of the end of my collegiate career. I could not have asked for a better four years with my teammates and coaches.

Thoughts on the first day of practice

By Rob Marinaro
Head Coach

This is obviously a really exciting time of the season with getting everything started and seeing everybody coming back to campus.

All of our players are back and we had our first fitness test today. We probably had the highest percentage of passing players ever. That's a great start.

We are looking to push this group to the next level this season, so the expectations are a little bit higher and the demands are a little bit higher. So far, they are starting to meet those demands and expectations.

The top priority for all of the players during the summer is always conditioning. You get a taste of what they did during the summer right off the bat by starting with the fitness tests. We've had a chance to see which players were serious about their work in the summer, and which ones probably should have been working a little bit harder. With that, we've already started making determinations of the roles they will play during the year.

It was a real nice start with players passing the test on the first day, but they'll still have two more days to show that they have pushed themselves from a conditioning standpoint.

You can tell some pushed themselves a little harder this summer. As coaches, we are really trying to get a read on the freshmen, and that group was very impressive this morning. There are still some kids who need to step up a little bit, though. You don't always get a true indicator on the first day. You get a read, but that's not necessarily a read that tells us what the season holds for them.

The nice thing is we are finding that more of our players are pushing others to our expectations.