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Hi I'm Ariel Marsh and I'm a member of the Womens Basketball team here
at Cal Poly Pomona, this is your bronco sports preview. And I'm here
with Men's Soccer Coach, Lance Thompson.Thanks for being here. Thanks
for having me.Can you tell me about the conference you play in
Yea, we're a member of the CCAA very competitive men's soccer
conference. Arguably one of the top of division two conferences in the
nation, Sonoma State Dominguez Hills have won national titles in
recent years, and even as recent as last year Chico State won the
regional final in the Elite 8 so very competitive.
And when your looking for these great players that you see that you
recruit what you looking for a student athlete join your team
well you just hit the nail on the head its the student athlete
component and we the first question we really ask
ourselves. Are they able to compete in the classroom here.
They have to be compete in a classroom or it'll be tough to survive
here at Cal poly Pomona as you know I mean Cal Poly has a great
academic reputation the University sells itself there is not much not
much that I have to do on our end were inundated with potential
recruits to come here and play for us so the recruiting side of it
becomes pretty easy But that the first question is can they compete in
a classroom that's really the first and we ask ourselves so you have
all Americans, Luis Gonzalez returning for his senior year, what does
he brings to the team. Yea Luis is a dynamic forward without
a doubt He's got the great ability to score goals he's a finisher he's
a pure striker and obviously in our sport. That's pretty
important as the goals are hard to come he's got great leadership. He
was a junior college national player of the year a first-team
All-American and he was an All-American last year
but great leadership, and he's got a great speed and his ability to
score is what sets him apart from most of others so
goalkeeper Chris Minton transfer from UC Santa Barbara how is he going
to help you guys, yea that was a big pickup for us we were pretty
excited to get Chris for this upcoming year he'll have two seasons
with us he was actually recruited by UC Santa Barbara the year
after they won the national championship took a redshirt year there
and then a we are fortunate enough to get him to transfer us...owns
his area he has great presence back there he's a tall keeper very
athletic, but his big attribute for us is his presence in the goal
area after your players finish here at Cal poly. What have you instill
in them as a leader and as a teacher yea we talk about at the
the most important leadership quality that I believe all the great
leaders have is the ability to adapt and and I just talked to them
about that as we were just practicing on field 1 we needed to make a
move the field 2 for the interview and I said great leaders have to
have the ability to adapt we're going to adapt adjust and have a great
session over here so hopefully they have the ability to adapt thats
what were the key focal point well it looks like they're doing great
so And how does this Los Angeles area the talent here compared to
other parts. Yea I have been fortunate enough to coach in different
parts of the US back on the east coast around Baltimore and around
the Dallas area, Texas,San Diego in the Bay Area.
There's a enormous amount of talent here as far as soccer 's concern
in the Los Angeles area. If you look at our roster.
I say 90% of our roster is from the LA region. So
it's a nice as we're bringing in local talent to go to school here and
to compete for the soccer team it helps with our
attendance and recognition just within the soccer community so
recruiting here is a great great option for as there is so much club,
club teams that are here the high school teams are very
competitive so makes recruiting nice and local for us
and can you you just talk about the team 's goals for the season.
Well, I think as any team is entering into a new season with a few new
players You know, the goals are to be competitive and to give
ourselves a chance to compete in every game. We realize we don't have
the ability to control whether or not we're going win the games
there's us there's officials and there's the opposition so we don't
set those types of goals as we do the ability to
control our own effort to control our performance and to accomplish
some of the smaller goal is not just within the confines of the
game of soccer so. you know they're attainable goals for us to be
successful in their goals, that we have control over
Thanks coach good luck this season can wait to see you guys play
That was you're Broncos Sports Preview with head men's soccer coach,
Lance Thomspon thank you