Making their pitch
Mullen girls ready to roll in 2021 after missing 2020 entirely; senior Anna Seaman is team leader.
(Second in a series of previews for the new Season D.)
“It will be like last year all over again,” Mullen head coach Matthew Guglielmo said.
The operative words in the sentence are last year. Why? There was no last year. Just as the Mustangs were set to get going on the pitch, everything was shut down because of the raging coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
This try at 2021 in the new Season D “is an unknown for everybody,” Guglielmo said. “It’s from 2020, the same thing, oddly enough.”
With just some scrimmage time at Metro State -- an exhibition jamboree of sorts also involving the likes of Mountain Range and Windsor -- the last time Mullen and others played any schoolgirl soccer was in May 2019.
“It will be interesting,” Guglielmo said. “We have a lot of girls who would have had a year of varsity experience.”
As it is, Mullen heads into 2021 just like it did with 2020 – with a small number of veterans and lots of others looking to learn on the fly. The Mustangs boast senior captain and midfielder Anna Seaman, a front-line player. She’ll be joined in the midfield by junior Katy DeNezza. Guglielmo said he expects those two and Zoey Polzin, who’s back from tennis after a year – she used to play defense, but the coach said he’s going to “try her in another place, probably wing” – to be at the front of Mustangs’ hopes.
“We have a very small bunch of players with experience, then a bunch that don’t have any,” Guglielmo said. “But they’re a year older and they’re all club players who play at a pretty high level, so I feel good.”
© 2020 Mullen High School. All Rights Reserved.