A Good Start in Dubai But Work to Do in Cape Town
A Good Start in Dubai But Work to Do in Cape Town
Round 2 for the USA women is about momentum.
The entire program, of course, has momentum, and not just because Ilona Maher did so well on Dancing with the Stars. Maher, of course, along with her Bronze-Medal-Winning teammates have sparked a renewed interest in the game among young women, and while that measurement is anecdotal, it’s consistent and we’re inclined to believe it.
Then, of course, there’s also the momentum garnered from a pretty solid showing in Dubai with a bunch of new players and new leadership.
Leading the way with the newer players Kaylen Thomas looked very exciting and Head Coach Emilie Bydwell knows she can get more from the flyer.
“Kaylen is a very exciting player with so much potential,” Bydwell told GRR. “She had the benefit of being in residency all last year as a 19-year-old learning from our senior group, and more specifically Naya Tapper who really took Kaylen under her wing and supported her development. She was able to get a taste of the series with some exposure to minutes in Hong Kong and Singapore last year, and now she will be playing a significant role as we grow through this next cycle.”
We at GRR World Headquarters were also impressed with Sarah Levy’s physicality. Not known much as a big hitter, Levy, the squads co-captain, produced some thundering tackles in Dubai.
“Sarah has come into training following the Olympics and just gone from strength to strength,” said Bydwell. “She is an incredibly dynamic attacking player and we will look to utilize that more in Cape Town but she absolutely stepped up defensively, having the highest tackle count on the team and highest turnover count.”
The Bleu Wall
France certainly caused the USA problems and beat the Americans twice, once in pool play and once in the quarterfinals. And while the USA finished 5th in Dubai, they do have hopes to return to the podium. To do that they need to beat the likes of France.
“France is a good team, and they've been developing their depth very effectively over the last few years,” said Bydwell. “They have been consistently winning Euro championships at the U18 level and touring with a relatively large squad all the way up to the Olympics. They bring a great deal of pressure defensively and the reality is that where we are at as a team, our prioritiy wasn't around game play and problem solving under pressure through preseason, it was on building physical capacity and a strengthening our foundation of technical skills.”
Bydwell acknowledged that her team underperformed under in the quarterfinal and struggled to execute under pressure.
That will come, she added, as the program builds and training back in Chula Vista gets more intense.
Of course, that’s a long-term thing. Short-term there’s a tournament this weekend in Cape Town.
“Our goal is to optimize the potential of where we are as a team right now,” said Bydwell. “We will be focused on enhancing our ability to play as a unit through three phases, because we know that if we can do that we will have space for the players to express their super strengths. We also are explicitly addressing the mental side of the quarterfinal, because that's where we saw our biggest drop from an attention and execution standpoint last weekend. Now going into this weekend our first two pool games are essentially two quarterfinals so we need to prepare to manage that if we want to progress through the competition.”
The Cape Town format has switched to four pools of three teams. Only the pool winners move to the Cup Round (straight into the semifinals), so winning the pool games is crucial.
The USA opens the tournament at 2AM ET against Fiji and then plays Greabt Britain at 8:42AM ET.