The Long Beach State women’s soccer team failed to qualify for the Big West tournament last year for only the third time since Mauricio Ingrassia took over as head coach in 2004.
With several young players returning with at least a year of experience, there appears to be a good chance of reaching the lofty standards that the program has set over the last ten years.
Last year saw the end of a three-year run that featured an Elite Eight appearance in the NCAA tournament. Still, there’s a lot of confidence among the players from what they’ve seen in practice.
“It’s been going great,” Mimi Rangel said. “I think the environment is the best it could be right now. Everybody’s enjoying it, everybody’s having a good time, but also everybody knows when to be serious too.”
Rangel’s teammate, senior Taylor Nelson, echoed a similar sentiment.
“Everyone came in really focused,” Nelson said. “The freshmen have really gotten the groove of things with us, how we do things. We just have to keep working on how we play, building our identity with the new players.”
Even without a postseason appearance, there were a lot of valuable lessons learned last season. Ingrassia hopes his players can use that to be successful this year.
“The team came in super fit,” Ingrassia said. “We have a year under our belt. It’s very important to develop good habits and work on the culture.”
The 49ers will return their leading goal-scorer and Big West Freshman of the Year Mimi Rangel. Rangel, who scooped up several accolades after a terrific season last year, will be leaned upon heavily on offense. In addition to scoring five goals already, Rangel also added four assists, showing the potential to be a complete offensive player.
Ingrassia, though, was quick to point out Nelson as the leader of the team.
“She’s a senior,” Ingrassia said. “She knows what it takes. She’s also a great person and a fantastic player. She commands respect on the field and commands respect off the field. She’s a very good leader for us.”
Ingrassia then elaborated on his team’s strengths.
“I think we’re fit,” Ingrassia said. “We brought in some players that are going to improve our starting lineup. I think we have enough body of work that we know where we’ve been and we know where we want to be and now it’s just a matter of working daily towards that.”
Despite a down year last year, Ingrassia has made it clear that expectations haven’t changed for the 49ers.
“The goal is for us to win the conference,” Ingrassia said. “And get to the tournament and make a run the way the recent history of our program dictates. We want to go further than we’ve ever been, which would be to make the Final Four, to have a chance to win a National Championship.”
Ingrassia said one of the areas of concern so far has been the attacking third, and after two games it doesn’t seem like that’ll change. The 49ers have been shut out in both their games, losing their opener to USC 1-0 and finishing 0-0 against Georgetown.
“We get too anxious going forward,” Nelson said. “We want to rush things, we want to get forward really quickly when that’s not us.”
Still, being flashy isn’t this team’s style. If they’re going to win they’re going to do it being themselves, and that won’t always be pretty.
“We just knock it,” Nelson said. “We don’t do long balls. We just keep going down their throat. We keep it and when time’s right, then we go.”