Women’s soccer endure woes of Hurricane Katrina

Southern University interim soccer coach John Knighten said Hurricane Katrina caused an emotional aftermath for the Lady Jaguars (0-3 overall, 0-0 Southwestern Athletic Conference) and averted the team from focusing on their games.
After the Lady Jags’ season opener — against Alcorn State University — was cancelled due to Katrina, the players concentrated on the storm and recovery efforts.
“About three of the player’s family were directly affected by Katrina, so it was a very emotional period during that time,” Knighten said. “On practice days, the team was emotional because they hadn’t heard from their family members, so it had an effect on the team overall.”
Since then, all of the players have contacted their family members and Knighten said he has implemented prayer into his practices to help them, but the Lady Jaguars’ have suffered from a three-game skid and remain winless.
In their game against McNeese, the Lady Jags were downed 8-2. Southeastern and Nicholls State also put Southern away, 8-0 and 2-1, respectively.
“They were not conference games and those were our first games we played as a team, so that taught us,” said senior sweeper Khrystina Pindle. “We have gotten better every game, (so) I think we will be ready for our first SWAC game.”
Knighten said since the soccer team doesn’t start their season as early as other schools and due to Katrina, school was out for a week, the team lost valuable training time.
“We wanted (to play) at least four or five games before we got into SWAC play,” he said. “(We wanted) to be able to look at the positions the players needed to play in and the conditions of the players.”
Knighten said the Lady Jaguars’ experiences, despite them being losses, in the first three games helped them develop the technical and formation skills needed for conference play. The Lady Jags’ next game is against Mississippi Valley State University, a conference match up (1-3, 0-0 SWAC).
“I think we’re ready for conference play at this moment,” Knighten said. “We saw improvement in the Southeastern game and we saw vast improvement in the Nicholls State (game) that shows us we are headed in the right direction.”
As far as the team’s mentality on everything that happened in the past weeks, their focus for the upcoming game.
“I feel confident,” Pindle said. “We are looking good; everyday we’re learning things we need to improve and learning how each other plays.”