Tide, Tigers Finished ’12 Differ

Consistency is the key for Karen Hoppa and Todd Bramble.

Entering her 15th season at Auburn University, Hoppa has built one of the Southeastern Conference’s most stable programs. The Tigers have posted double-digit victories in each of the past seven seasons and have advanced to the NCAA tournament each time.

Hoppa’s Tigers have qualified for 11 NCAA tournaments in all, including six trips to the second round, and have won seven SEC Western Division titles, one SEC title (2002), and a SEC tournament championship (2011).

Bramble is familiar with that level of success from his time as head women’s soccer coach at Clemson University. He guided the Atlantic Coast Conference’s Tigers from 2001-07 and led them to the Sweet Sixteen in 2001, and back to the NCAA tournament every other year.

His goal in taking the job at the University of Alabama was to build a program of similar stature. And while he has helped the Crimson Tide make their first SEC tournament appearance since 2004 and get back to the NCAA tournament in 2011 for the first time since 1998, he hasn’t been able to get the program over .500 in back-to-back seasons in his first six seasons.

Both coaches hope their programs can continue and develop that consistency this season.

“We’re excited about this group,” Hoppa said. “We’re young and have a lot of unknowns. We lost six starters from last year, but we have had some really good battles in the preseason, so we’re really excited. The a[show_disconnected][show_to accesslevel=’Subscriber’]mount we have grown has been massive, so if we keep developing at this rate I am excited to see where we can go this season.”

Auburn relied on that tradition late last year to extend its season. It defeated archrival Alabama 4-3 in double overtime in the regular-season finale.

Auburn then edged the University of Tennessee in penalty kicks 5-3 in the second round of the SEC tournament and beat SEC West regular-season champion Texas A&M to advance to play the Florida Gators for the title.

A loss to the Gators didn’t prevent the Tigers from earning a trip to the NCAA tournament, where they defeated Washington 2-1 and lost to Brigham Young,1-0.

While Hoppa admits the program sustained key graduation losses, Auburn returns 11 letterwinners. There are 10 newcomers (eight freshmen, two transfers), are part of a recruiting class that was ranked #20. Only the Georgia and Texas A&M had recruiting classes ranked higher.

“There are going to be quite a few freshman who contribute,” Hoppa said. “I think three or four are going to play significant roles for us to be successful. We have been real excited about this recruiting class for a couple of years. We knew we were going to need them.”

Hoppa hopes the newcomers can jell with a core of returning players led by Maddie Barnes, a fifth-year senior who is a captain. She feels Barnes will play the role of “connector” in the middle of the field.

She looks to forward Tori Bell and defenders Bianca Sierra and Kala Faulkner to keep a good thing going. She said the Tigers will strive to play an attacking and possession-oriented style that has been their trademark every year.

“By the end of the year last year we learned to win in big games,” Hoppa said.

“They need to have learned from the good and the bad from last year. Take that experience into this season and take motivation from being heartbroken at the end of the BYU game. Now there is finally something we can do about it.

“What we’re hoping is the returning players have learned to win in those big games and that urgency we talked about is something they bring every Friday night.”

Alabama Crimson Tide

Maintaining the momentum from 2011 was Bramble’s goal entering the 2012 campaign. The Crimson Tide won a game in the SEC tourney to secure the program’s second trip to the NCAA tournament and appeared poised to build on that finish in 2012.

But a promising 5-0 start evaporated thanks in part to seven one-goal losses. While Bramble wasn’t pleased with the 8-9-2 record (3-8-2 in the SEC), he felt the program took a step forward in the sense that it tried to play a more attractive brand of soccer.

For the most part, he felt Alabama did a nice job controlling tempo and keeping possession. The difficulty came in finishing matches and not getting enough results to support a higher level of play.

“Last year was going to be all about continuing to move forward and establishing consistency and demonstrating that we are a team that belongs in the NCAA tournament year in and year out,” Bramble said. “It is difficult because this is a results-oriented business and we didn’t get the results we wanted and needed to sustain that momentum from a pure soccer standpoint.”

Bramble said the coaches didn’t want to ditch their strategy for playing the way they did because they felt it would send the wrong message to the players. They stressed to the Crimson Tide that they didn’t want them to dwell on the close calls the team had last season. Instead, Bramble wants the team to stay on course and take the next step.

“We’re putting ourselves in position to (get back on track), and we do feel really good about that,” Bramble said. “It is a player-friendly system we’re playing that the players are really excited about. It takes a little more courage and concentration, and it is not the easier route, for sure.”

Bramble’s goal is to elevate Alabama to the level of national powers like Stanford University, UCLA, and the University of Notre Dame. With Alabama’s tradition of excellence in the entire athletic department, he is confident he and his coaches can continue to recruit players who want to play an attractive brand of soccer.

“What was so tough about last year is a lot of the coaches and our opponents and players in the league knew how good we were despite our record looked like,” Bramble said.

“Everyone still knows they’re going to have to play their best game to beat Alabama despite the fact we won only three conference games last year.”

Bramble will rely on nine returning starters to change that finish. With only four seniors and its six top returning scorers back, including junior Pia Rijsdijk, sophomore Katie Bourgeois, senior Molly Atherton, and junior Theresa Diederich and SEC Freshman of the Year Merel van Dongen, the Crimson Tide could have the pieces to become a consistent challenger in the SEC and on the national scene.

“If you look at a specific goal of where we want to finish in the league, finishing in the top six is one we feel really good about,” Bramble said.