g&b,
You've been around high-level South Carolina club soccer a lot longer than I have. I don't have any daughters playing R3PL and my youngest is the first one to play SCYSA ODP. I have seen some of our best young ladies on the high school field but only very rarely have I had the opportunity to see some of them play club soccer. I'll defer to you and I'd like to hear more of your thoughts.
As I mentioned earlier, if there was more than one club coach working with these girls at a time, perhaps the forwards could be trained specifically to finish while the rest of the team is working on other aspects of the game.
How many great goalscorers have we produced, that have made an impact on the collegiate level? In the past few years we have seen West Ashley's Julie Bolt, JL Mann's Blakely Mattern and North Myrtle Beach's Blair Monroe.
Julie's very explosive and capable of scoring goals, but:
1. She plays in the top college league in the country (it's hard to score)
2. Goalscoring is not her primary job at Clemson (I think they play her at midfield)
Blakely is a fantastic player at USC, but I believe her role with the Lady Gamecocks is primarily a defensive one.
Blair scored 134 goals in high school and plays on one of the top teams in the Big South. She is a proven goalscorer at the D1 level at Coastal Carolina. Granted, the Big South is not nearly as competitive as the SEC or the ACC, but Blair is still putting it into the back of the net.
I'm sure Julie Bolt could flourish as a forward in the Big South, but I'm not sure about too many others. Perhaps Danielle Schmitt who plays as a reserve forward at Clemson but scored well over 100 goals in her high school career at Fort Mill.
Are there any other South Carolina products knocking in goals at any South Carolina colleges, or are all the goalscorers from out-of-state? C of C, Furman, Wofford, The Citadel, Charleston Southern????
How about some of this year's high school senior class? Kira Campbell (Lexington), Hannah Gmerek (Wren), Ashleigh Sheets (Fort Mill)? All of these girls can score at the high school level but do they have much success at R3PL? All three of these girls are probably either midfielders or defenders at the D1 level in the fall of 2008.
