The star of Friday’s practices at the College Cup was the KSU Soccer Stadium.
“It’s just perfect,” Duke coach Robbie Church said. “It really is.”
The soccer-specific stadium opened in 2010, has already hosted international soccer matches, serves as the home field for Kennesaw State and the Atlanta Beat and has drawn wide praise from players and coaches.
“It’s awesome,” said Stanford midfielder Teresa Noyola, also a member of the Mexican national team. “This is probably the best one I’ve seen in the U.S.”
The field has gone unused for the past six weeks to prep it for the tournament, Kennesaw State associate head coach Frank Pitt said. A Bermuda grass field with Ryegrass overseed, the field can drain three inches per hour and is cut to three-quarters of an inch.
ACC officials and coaches have discussed bringing the league tournament to the stadium, which Florida State coach Mark Krikorian would not oppose. “I don’t know that there’s an event that wouldn’t be great to have here,” he said.
Local ties
The three ACC teams have local representation in Duke midfielder Molly Lester (Lovett), Wake Forest midfielder Kristen Meier (Marist) and Florida State midfielder Katya Gokhman (Milton). Lester and Meier are both starters; Gokhman is a sub.
“It’ll be fun to have a semi-home crowd,” Lester said.
Lester is a fifth-year senior after sitting out one season with a torn ACL in her left knee and another with a microfracture in the same knee. She has used the time to graduate magna cum laude with a history degree and is now earning a master’s in management studies.
Lester’s coach has ties to the area, as well. Church grew up in North Carolina, but boarded at Woodward Academy in high school and still has friends in the area. “It’s a place that really shaped my life,” he said of the school.
Soccer abounds
Three youth soccer tournaments going on around the College Cup will bring about 1,100 teams to metro Atlanta, according to Gwinnett Soccer Association coach Campbell Chapman. He is helping organize the GSA College Showcase, for which almost 300 college coaches had registered to attend and scout as of Thursday evening.
“They’ll get to the field 7:30 a.m., and most of them will leave when the lights go out,” he said of the college coaches. “This is a very big recruiting trip for them.”
At the team news conferences, Church and Wake Forest coach Tony da Luz lamented that recruiting has become so pervasive that they are focusing their time this year on prospects who are high school sophomores.
Etc.
The Stanford-FSU game will be carried on ESPNU. The Duke-Wake Forest game will be shown tape-delayed on ESPNU at 11 a.m. Sunday. Both will be live on espn3.com. Beth Mowins (play-by-play) and Julie Foudy (color) will call the game. The final will be live on ESPNU at 1 p.m. Sunday. ... Standing-room only tickets are all that remain for the matches.
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