Band of Outsiders: Tide Soccer Team Features Six Ohioans
9/26/2006 12:00:00 AM | Soccer
By Scott Latta
UA Media Relations
The University of Alabama soccer team considers itself a family, knit together by the countless hours it spends together in the gym and on the field.
Geographically, the group has little in common with each other. Of the 24 players on the Tide roster, 21 are from out-of-state.
One group of Alabama players, however, has a major common bond at the Capstone??six of them are from Cincinnati, Ohio.
Freshman Ashley Scheidt and sophomores Kailey Corken, Kara Gudmens, Cara Kelly, Brittini Lally and Colleen Posey all hail from Cincinnati. The six players from Cincinnati give Alabama one more than the University of Cincinnati.
“Cincinnati is considered a hotbed for soccer players,” Head Coach Don Staley said. “We’ve always looked up there. It’s really close enough, yet far enough away. It’s a little bit of distance, but we know that Cincinnati has direct flights into Birmingham, and the interstate is pretty much a straight shot. They love the climate and they love the university.”
Alabama’s connection to The Queen City begins with assistant coach Katie Barnes, an integral part of the Tide’s Cincinnati recruiting and Ohio native. Barnes, who played soccer at West Virginia, is responsible for numerous commitments from current Tide players.
“Barnes??it was Barnes,” said Lally, whose club team in Ohio was trained by the current Tide assistant coach. “She is the reason I came.”
Lally, who attended Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy and led Cincinnati United Premier to the 2003 state championship, played against Scheidt and trained with Gudmens, the current Tide goalkeeper.
“It’s comforting knowing they’re from the same place I am; it gives us something to talk about,” she said. “If you get homesick you can talk about it.”
Having six players on the roster from the same city, the girls say, gives an instant sense of familiarity and comfort. Some were familiar with their current teammates in high school; others didn’t meet their fellow Ohioans until they arrived in Tuscaloosa.
“I actually played with Kailey Corkin since I was nine years old, we were on the same club team,” Kelly said. “I played with Ashley Scheidt in high school, so I knew Kailey and Ashley, and I actually played with Kara Gudmens for a little bit.”
“It was very comforting; it felt like home. You feel like home more.”
In high school, Scheidt was named first-team all-GGCL (Greater Girls Cincinnati League) and led her team to a no. 1 national ranking in 2003. As a freshman, she says, the sense of home is especially beneficial.
“I only grew up with Cara Kelly and met everybody else here this fall. It was more comforting and I felt more at home since so many girls on the team are from Cincinnati, so it was definitely easier,” she said.
“There’s most definitely a common bond. Having a broken foot right now, I always call on my Cincinnati girls to drag me around or for support, so they’re always there.”
Cincinnati is home to one of the most competitive areas for soccer in the nation, both on the high school and club level. Recruiting players that have experience in one of the toughest soccer regions in the nation, coaches say, prepares players for the high intensity of SEC-play.
And according to the players, their experience in the talent-laden soccer region makes the adjustment to the speed and intensity of SEC soccer easier.
“Soccer in Cincinnati is very competitive, there are lots of talented high school and club teams,” Kelly said. “Every time we play a team it’s always a battle like it is down here. It’s very competitive and you just have to work hard and be the best.”
In addition to the half-dozen players from Ohio, ten other states other than Alabama are represented on the Alabama roster, and four players hail from Canada.
Recruiting out-of-state, Staley says, is the foundation of Alabama soccer.
“When you start getting pockets of players from an area and they like it, news travels,” he said. “We started this program with some Texans and some Georgia kids, and we’re kind of going back to some of those areas that got us started. Cincinnati has been one of our hubs, and we’re starting to get back into Georgia.
“We’re starting to attract the best players in Alabama, so I think the potential for us to recruit multiple kids from areas is going to continue. And with the facilities and academic standards of this place, it’s an easy sell.”
Regardless of the state Alabama’s future players come from, Kelly says, the Cincinnati connection at Alabama will always provide a tie back home.
“We made really close friendships, actually. I feel a lot closer, even to Kailey, who I’ve known since I was nine, and I feel closer to the other girls too,” she said. “When you go home, you know that you can always call, that you’ll have friends up in Cincinnati. I feel like the bond between us all is really close.”
