Long Beach State University Athletics
Ingrassia's Savvy Pays Off
8/29/2007 12:00:00 AM | General
|
Ingrassia's Savvy Bearing Fruit for 49ers As baseball nears its climax, football sets to commence and basketball lurks on the horizon, soccer continues its impressive upward arc on the American athletic landscape. Why, it was only a few years ago that the sport rated below bowling, billiards, racquetball and even badminton on the popularity list in this country, but times have changed dramatically. Parks now are overflowing with kids playing the game. The press now is giving it extensive coverage, especially since the arrival of the glamorous David Beckham to the Los Angeles Galaxy. Sellout crowds now for MLS matches no longer are a rarity. "I've seen soccer go from where no one cared much about it 10 years ago to it now being on the verge of becoming a mainstream sport," says Mauricio Ingrasssia, the extraordinary women's soccer coach at Long Beach State whose team opens its season Friday against Cal State Bakersfield in the San Joaquin Valley hamlet. "Soccer has become so much more popular. You now can get all the Champions League matches on DirecTV, and so many of the other major league matches on cable TV. You walk around our campus, and you see students wearing the jerseys of popular international soccer teams. "I teach a soccer class at the university, and have to turn kids away from it. So many youngsters in this country are now playing soccer. There is no doubt in my mind that soccer is a sport that one day in this country will rank right there with football, baseball and basketball." It will be individuals like Mauricio Ingrassia who will have played a role in such a phenomenon, since the 36-year-old Argentinean native has in the past decade revived women's soccer at two academic institutions in this city. During his nine year incumbency at Long Beach City College, Ingrassia disinterred a moribund program, winning five state titles and two national ones in recording a glittering 184-24-8 record. And he has orchestrated a similar feat at Long Beach State since his arrival in 2004, bringing in heralded recruiting classes, winning the Big West regular season title and posting a school-best record of 14-5-1 in 2006, posting a school-best record of 12-5-3 in 2005, participating in the Big West tournament both seasons. And last year Ingrassia's 49ers reached a 21st ranking in the Soccer Buzz poll, their highest ever, and they're now ranked 25th in its preseason tabulation. "I guess that's not bad since we were rated around 200th when I first got here," says Ingrassia, whose team will make its home debut Sunday at the ungodly hour of 9 a.m. - the Long Beach Blues Festival is being staged that day on campus - when it faces Utah at George Allen Field. This should be Ingrassia's strongest squad since the eight players who have started for him the past two seasons - and were members of his 15th rated recruiting class in the country in 2005 - will be returning, along with such newcomers as the Shevlin twins from Peru, Grace and Caroline, Lindsay Bullock of Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach and Kristen Kiefer of Capistrano Valley High in Mission Viejo. The Shevlin twins perform for the Peruvian national team, Bullock was such a terrific player at Mira Costa that her jersey number was retired, and Kiefer has exceptional speed as evidenced by her 13.97 clocking in the 100-meter hurdles. "Obviously, we should be better this season because we're more experienced and we're deeper," says Ingrassia. Ingrassia also has two of his top players returning in Hayley Bolt, a Los Alamitos High graduate who was the Big West's Midfielder of the Year last season, and Kim Silos, a spunky 5-3 midfielder who was the Big West's Offensive Player of the Year. "Hayley was a steal for us when she came here two years ago," says Ingrassia. "She was being recruited by everybody. But she believed in my vision about us becoming a winner, and wanted to be a part of it. I'm certainly glad she is." Mauricio Ingrassia is also glad that he has 6-1 Sarah Strohl as a defender at midfield where she is adept at disrupting the offensive flow of opponents. "She's tremendous," he says of the sophomore from Patrick Henry High in San Diego. The 49ers have a difficult nonleague schedule, as they host Oklahoma, Baylor, USC and Wyoming and will be on the road against the likes of Clemson, Wake Forest and Brigham Young. One certainly isn't being gouged for a season ticket to the 49ers' nine-game home schedule. Incredibly, it's a mere $30, barely enough for parking fees at a Laker game. "Why have you been so successful as a soccer coach?" I asked Ingrassia. He paused a moment and then replied, "This is a player's game. The lifeblood of any team is in recruiting, in the players you manage to get. And we've done well in this area the last couple of years. Of course, when you get the players, you have to work on the chemistry and get them to play hard and for each other. That's very important." Mauricio Ingrassia no doubt has women's soccer at Long Beach State flourishing. He already has five commitments from high school seniors for next season. "My goal from the start here was for us to become a West Coast powerhouse, and I believe we're headed in that direction," says Ingrassia. Ingrassia and his wife Erin have a four-year-old daughter named Madison, and Ingrassia admits she's his youngest recruit. "I think she's destined to be a soccer player," he says with a laugh. |
