Aug. 25, 2005

By Jessica Garrison

CSTV.com

Pop Quiz: What Division I women's soccer team led the nation in scoring offense last season?

Answer: Prairie View A&M. Yes, Prairie View A&M.

The women's soccer world, like most sports circles, lives under a few rules of normalcy. Most games will be decided by a difference of no more than two or three goals, defense will define a championship team, and UNC will contend for a title every year. So the rise of tiny Prairie View, a historically black college with an enrollment of about 8,000 students in Prairie View, Texas, to the scoring offense title so often dominated by the North Carolinas and Notre Dames of the landscape was something of a shock to the system.

The Lady Panthers racked up 6.15 goals per game in 2004, playing in the Southwestern Athletic conference. Their home field holds 6,000 fans, but they averaged 43 fans a game. They have never snagged an NCAA tournament berth.

By comparison, the Tar Heels finished seventh in the league with 2.96 goals per game in the ACC.  Their Fetzer Field holds had an average of 2,422 fans in Fetzer Field's 6,000 seats, and they have no less than 22 NCAA appearances to their name. They may share a Division with the Lady Panthers, but they share little else.

How is it, then, that Prairie View managed to blow the Tar Heels' scoring out of water?

The truth is, with 13 games in a season and a conference full of brand-new programs, Prairie View's scoring numbers are fairly skewed. A 22-0 win over Alabama State on Oct. 18 will inflate your numbers, as will winning four other games by 10 or more goals. Whether those numbers reflect what the Panthers were about last season is less clear.

The absurd scoring numbers are good, "but it's nothing to get all excited about, because of the level of the team," coach Felicia Tarver said. "I don't even look at that as a win to be proud of. I tell my girls, of course you were supposed to beat them. Don't celebrate, because you did what you were supposed to do."

A win that Tarver is much more proud of came against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, on Oct. 17. "We were trying to get our ranking up in the conference," Tarver said. "For some reason we didn't start off like the team we were supposed to, and as we went on they started progressing and started competing. When we scored [the third goal], that sealed the deal for second place."

Prairie View did come up against its fair share of close games, and got kicked around in turn by superior opponents. Twice they gave up seven goals, and out of 300 Division I schools, the Lady Panthers came in 236^th place in goals against average. The sort of mental and defensive breakdowns that lead to losses like a 7-0 trampling at Houston are something Tarver hopes her squad can eradicate this season.

Do Not Go Gently

While the numbers are deceiving, the Lady Panthers represent a portion of Division I soccer - safely said, the majority - that does not operate under the bright lights and big game atmosphere of the perennial Top 25 teams. But Prairie View's student athletes take their game no less seriously.

The Lady Panthers certainly have one thing going for them in a quest to dominate their conference offensively: almost their entire roster of players returning from last season. Only Ashley Molock, an All-SWAC selection as a freshman, has decided to leave the team as a transfer. Graduation didn't faze Tarver's squad in the slightest. This year, they have plenty of experienced seniors to lead the way.

Senior goalkeeper Amy Miller was Tarver's first recruit. She moved from a field position to full-time goalkeeping less than two years ago, but she has become an important cog in the Panthers' machine from between the posts.

"Amy means a lot to the team," Tarver said. "This year she's going to realize how important she is." And, just in case she becomes valuable outside of the goal, "keep her jersey around just in case I have to put her back on the field," Tarver laughed.

Miller has seen plenty of progress in her four years at Prairie View.  "We've grown as a team since I've been here," she said. Even so, "we're going to have to work together more, we're going to have to work more on passing around the other team. That'll bring more wins."

Miller points to senior defender Monique Long as another essential part of the team's senior leadership.

"If [Long] has the ball, she's going to make a play with it," Miller said. "I guess she has a lot of mind for the game. She knows how to create the plays. She plays stopper - she makes runs, and she'll still get back. She's got a whole lot of endurance."

Tarver puts it more succinctly. "Monique is good," she declares.

Both Long and Miller came to Prairie View from atypical backgrounds. Miller is white, at a school with an overwhelmingly black population, and Long came to Texas from Kingston, Jamaica for college.

"People look at you differently sometimes," Miller admits, but she credits her team for helping her feel at home. After graduation, Miller will take her MCATs and apply to medical school with a Navy scholarship, so she considers her time at Prairie View, win or lose, a success.

Long was recruited to Prairie View in part through a track coach who hails from the same city in Jamaica. For her, Tarver's affable personality helped ease the transition. "If it wasn't for her," Long says, "I wouldn't have stayed here."

Stay she did, and the Panthers have been better for it. Long's ability to get the ball to senior forward Catherine Burnley was instrumental in Burnley's place as the second-most efficient scorer in the nation. Only Jackson State's Emily Parmater scored more than Burnley's 1.15 goals per game.

Whether this senior class will go out with a bang is anybody's guess, but Long, Miller, Burnley and their classmates have faith that their team is behind them.

"I hope so that we capitalize on the skill level that will be on the field and finish what we've been working on the last three years," junior Lindsay Slay said. "Most of our seniors give 100 percent when they play. I hope they find an extra 10 percent and get out there."

A Light To Guide Them

Prairie View players seem have faith in their team in no small part because they have faith in their coach. Tarver's role seems to extend well beyond running drills or calling substitutions. She is part counselor, part mom-away-from-home, part confidante and part friend to "her girls," and plenty of them feel safe with her in all of those roles.

Tarver graduated from Prairie View in 1999, one of many reasons she connects with her student-athletes on such a personal level.

"She wasn't naturally a soccer player, from the beginning," Long said. "She was basketball first, and then she grew into the sport. With girls on a team there's going to be some kind of conflict and she handles that well, whatever situation it may be."

"We can go and talk to her about pretty much anything," Slay agreed. "In college your mom's not there. She'll be there for you like that."

Tarver's experience as a real life mother is part of her expertise, and she isn't shy to share that experience with her team as well. When she had twins on the night of the school's athletic banquet, Slay claimed that the players were excited that they had a new set of "mascots" to cheer on the team.

For every personal story or issue that the Panthers share with their coach, however, there is a soccer goal that takes precedence when the team steps on the field. With a remarkable statistical record in their back pocket and a class of seniors hungry for a happy ending, Prairie View's coach has plenty to discuss with her players.

"I'd like to win the championship and I guess we're going to all lay it on the line," Miller said. "We talk about that with her."

Jessica Garrison is an Assistant Editor for CSTV.com. She can be reached here for comments or questions.