Ingrassia, Soto Unite Again, Boost 49ers
by Matt Zimmerman, Long Beach Press-Telegram
November 3, 2005 Today, Mauricio Ingrassia and Eddie Soto return to their old stomping grounds.
At 5 p.m., the pair will join goalie coach Wendi Whitman and volunteer assistant Jeff Joyner in leading the Long Beach State women's soccer team to its first-ever postseason appearance, a Big West Conference Tournament semifinal match against UC Riverside at Cal State Fullerton. More than a decade ago, the two old youth soccer friends had transferred from separate colleges to CSUF, where they joined a group that opened Titan Stadium in 1992 with a 4-2 loss to national powerhouse UCLA.
Ingrassia eventually moved on to win five state titles in nine seasons coaching the Long Beach City College women's soccer team, while Soto spent three seasons as a Titans men's soccer assistant after pursuing his professional dream for five years. When Ingrassia, after nine seasons and five state titles at Long Beach City, was tapped to lead the 49er program in June 2004, he knew exactly who was the first prospective staffer he would call.
"For one, he was the best man at my wedding, I was the best man at his wedding, we were really close," said Ingrassia, who had applied for the LBSU job the previous two times it was open, in 1998 and 2001. "And he had the Division I experience that I didn't have. The learning curve is pretty steep, going from anything to Division I as far as the paperwork, and rules, and regulations, just the way you approach everything. We've learned a lot, and Eddie's been a big help."
LBSU (12-5-2, 3-3-1) had been close to the postseason before, including tying for fourth in 2003, when it went 9-9 (5-4 Big West). That season, two losses in their last three games cost the 49ers the tiebreakers and kept them out of the four-team tournament.
After Ingrassia and his staff took over for retired coach Peter Reynaud, the team had a tough year, finishing 6-9-2 and only 1-6-2 in conference play. But behind the scenes, regional Olympic Development Program coaches Ingrassia and Whitman and Division I coaching veteran Soto were planting the seeds for this breakout season, with only a vision of possible success to sell.
"We didn't know our team, we didn't know our strengths, we didn't know what we needed, so it was very difficult to recruit early on," Soto, a 1990 CIF Player of the Year at Cerritos High, said of building what eventually became a top-15 recruiting class. "Luckily, Mauricio with his connections with the regional ODP team, a lot of kids wanted to come play for him, which is good. That's my philosophy in recruiting, is people want to come play for people, they knew Mauricio, they knew Wendi, they got to know me, and this is where they wanted to be. They turned down a lot of pretty good offers to be here, they see (the possibilities) we see."
Soto scored a program-record 18 goals as a senior for the Titans' NCAA quarterfinalists in 1994, and the two-time All-American went on to play for the East Los Angeles Cobras of the USISL and was later in training camps with the New York/New Jersey MetroStars and the then-San Jose Clash of Major League Soccer before finishing in 2000 with the A-League Orange County Zodiac.
Ingrassia recruited Whitman, a 2000 Stanford graduate who won two Pac-10 titles defending the goal for the Cardinal, through their mutual connection with the California Olympic Development Program. In 2003, Ingrassia was appointed head coach for the Cal South 87s team (players born in 1987), while the same year Whitman became the girls goalkeeper coach for all age groups in Cal South ODP.
Ingrassia took what he called a "shot in the dark," and asked Whitman to join the staff. She responded in the affirmative, and the building began in earnest.
"Now we're to the point where we know we need to fill certain roles," said Whitman, who is the team's recruiting coordinator. "When we came in last year, we knew we just had to get players in here, but we weren't looking for specific players, certain types of players.
We knew we wanted our types of players, but we didn't know what that was because we didn't know exactly what we had."
With this staff assembled, they went to work identifying the players necessary to bring LBSU back.
Now the team is two wins away from the first NCAA berth in program history. |
