A chance to play the game

Men's soccer team adds reserve squad

First-year Patrick Joy was one of around 50 players to try out for the varsity soccer team this August.

Joy's fate wasn't the fate that any of those players hoped for. He didn't make the squad.

But now, about midway through the soccer season, Joy is on the team. His route came through the newly formed reserve squad, which was conceived by coach Chris Barker and is coached by recent Oberlin graduates Ted Cohen and Brandon Russell.

The team has played five games thus far and has three left - including its home finalé Saturday at 2:15 p.m. against Wittenberg.

The team is giving many of the players who didn't make the varsity team - and a handful of others - a chance to keep playing soccer competitively. Aside from a few junior varsity tennis matches and cross country races, Oberlin has not had a junior varsity program in any sport for years. Other NCAC schools have teams reserve teams for soccer and basketball.

"Had there not been a reserve team, I wouldn't have played on any team," Joy said.

Though the goal of the players is to do what Joy has done - get the varsity call - they say the group is cohesive and has learned to play as a team. The team demonstrated how close it has become Monday when it beat Mount Union College 2-1 to improve its record to 2-3.

Oberlin's opening game was a 8-2 loss to Mount Union. Its next two games were also losses. And the most recent pair of games have been wins.

"We're making great strides," Cohen said.

The strides have been so great that a second player, first-year Peter Kazarinoff, has been called up to practice with the varsity team two days a week through the reserve season. Kazarinoff will continue playing and practicing with the reserve team three days a week.

Though the players are fulfilling their own goals by getting a chance to join the varsity, it costs the reserve team. Russell pondered the prospect of whether more players being taken from his team during the season. "We hope not. We've got good chemistry."

The players appreciate that chemistry - and the opportunity to play in every game, which many of them would not have playing for the varsity Yeomen.

"I'd much rather be on the reserve team and get more experience," Kazarinoff said. The reserve squad, he said, has helped him ease what he realized in August would be a hard transition from high school to college soccer.

"The very first day of practice, I saw that I wasn't one of the strongest players. Everyone was so much bigger and so much stronger," he said. "I wasn't really that ready to play varsity right away."

When the reserve season ends just before fall break, Kazarinoff and a few other players will join the varsity team full time.

On the reserve team, there's more democracy. Every player plays in every game. "We were all lumped together," Joy said. "It wasn't like there was some sort of hierarchy."

The team's funding is coming through alumni donations and money left over from last year's intercollegiate athletic funds.

Athletic director Don Hunsinger said he'd like to see more sports develop reserve squads - and that the cost of running such a team is low - mostly gas and food money for away games. The reserve team's coaches are also receiving small stipends for their work.

As 1996 Oberlin graduates, the coaches aren't much older than their players - especially captains junior J.T. Englehardt and senior Dave Wallace, wbo are refugees from football and cross country.

Wallace joined the team as its only goalkeeper. The team is giving him his first-ever competitive experience in a game he loves. But he said the program as a whole is more significant than that. "There's no way it can do anything but become a power force in the conference."

Englehardt, though new to college soccer, wants a shot at playing varsity. "I think the reserve team is a great idea," Englehardt said. "We play some serious, competitive soccer and we wouldn't be playing otherwise."