By Lethbridge Herald on April 12, 2022.
Justin Seward
Lethbridge Herald
The Lethbridge College Kodiaks hosted their annual Talent I. D. camp for both its men’s and women’s soccer clubs over the weekend to see who the teams could recruit for next year’s rosters.
Kodiaks head coach Sean Carey was impressed with what he saw from the girls, who took to the field on Saturday.
The morning session saw the girls put through 1.5 hours of drills and the afternoon was a game.
“I really enjoyed today,” said Carey.
“We saw a lot of quality players out there and you know it’s a bit of a headache for the fall, which is what we wanted. We have more players than we can take on our roster which is always a good thing. So, yeah, I think a really good training camp in the fall and this team could make a lot of noise this year.”
Carey’s main focus in I.D. camps is to get players to the college to familiarize themselves with the facilities and current players.
“That makes it a lot easier for recruiting,” he said.
Carey said a lot of the players get nervous about coming out.
“But honestly, just go out and enjoy yourself,” he said.
“We know how you can play. We as coaches right here , we can tell in a warm up if they’re going to be a player or not. So a lot of the girls that played today — I’ve seen them. There’s only three girls that I’ve never seen.”
Coaches look for how much commitment a player brings, how much energy is put out on the field.
Carey said the skills can sometimes be learned.
“There’s certain things that you can control like your attitude, your work ethic, that kind of stuff,” he said.
“We can see that. So if a player makes a bad pass but just stands there, then you know that they don’t have that work ethic to try and win that ball back. But I didn’t see that out of any girls today out there — they were all pushing it hard.”
A field of 39 guys came out for the men’s camp on Sunday.
Carey said he didn’t know what to expect.
“We had 15 guys we had never seen before play,” said Carey.
“I think there was some good stuff. But there was definitely players there that weren’t at the level to play at the college. Sometimes that brings the level of play down. But, you know, I think it’s tough to judge. I think for the most part, we saw a couple of players that we could work with and help the team.”
Carey anticipates they will take four to five guys into training camp to see if they can step up to that next level.