The Fresno City College Women’s Soccer team is committed to winning on and off the field for the upcoming season.
After going 17-3-4 in the 2022 season, the team currently ranks No. 7 in the nation among city colleges according to the National Junior College Athletic Association Division III.With the temperature hitting 109 degrees, Coach Oliver Germond, who’s been running the program for 23 years, watches closely on the soccer field as the players complete their drills.
The team has been training since July 5 from 7 to 9 a.m. from Monday to Friday.
“We now started training from 3 to 5 p.m. to condition them to prepare under this extreme weather for the season,” Germond said.
Along with the weather being tough on the players, being a student-athlete is a full-year commitment and it can be tough to balance between school and sports.
“They go to classes in the morning and some of our players even work in the evening, it is no joke being a student-athlete,” Germond said.
One of the challenges the team has to deal with is players’ turnaround during the off-season.
“We have 18 students who graduated last year, so we have a lot of new freshmen. But I feel our standards never changed. We want to be the best and give them an opportunity to get our sophomores to transfer to a four year university,” Germond said.
One of the returning sophomores is Audry Haman, goalkeeper, who expressed her position as the hardest position on the soccer field.
“Goalkeeping is definitely a mental game, one way we overcome when we get scored on is to be the mind of a goldfish,” Haman said. “Goldfish can only remember a couple of seconds. So even with the goal we let in, we want to acknowledge it, move on and be ready for the next play.”
The other challenges are recruiting players since more community colleges started to have their own women soccer programs.
“Madera, Reedley and Clovis Community College recently started their own women’s soccer teams, so many coaches are recruiting the same players that we are,” Germond said.
Frankie Lee, graduated from Sanger High School and chose to play at FCC because of its competitiveness.
“I know it is a very competitive program and I like being competitive. Overall it is a better decision for me, not just financial wise, it is because of the FCC soccer program,” Lee said.
The importance of team chemistry is a major factor for being competitive for the upcoming season according to Haman.
“I am really looking forward to spending more time with my soccer family. I think that is what is actually going to propel us to make it all the way to the state championship this year. The off-field chemistry directly correlates to on-field chemistry,” Haman said.
The FCC Women’s Soccer’s first game of the season will be at home on Aug. 29 against Santa Rosa Junior College. The game will start at 4 p.m.
2023 FCC Women’s Soccer Schedule here.
