Boes Finds Voice to Toughen Anteater Defense
She was the good little soldier, ready to respond to any command, when she showed up for her first UC Irvine soccer practice four years ago.
“I didn’t make a squeak,” Stephanie Boes said. “I just looked to the older girls to tell me what to do.”
That might sound like a practical freshman approach, but there was only one drawback to Boes’ reticence. She’s a goalkeeper.
“In football, you have the quarterback,” Coach Marine Cano said. “And in soccer, it’s the goalkeeper. It’s the single most important position, a position where you can’t focus on yourself, you have to control an entire aspect of the game.”
And you can’t do that with your mouth shut. It took awhile for Boes to come to terms with that, but these days she’s barking orders like a drill sergeant.
Boes has played a significant role, recording four shutouts to extend her school career record to 25. Irvine is off to a 4-1-1 start after outscoring opponents, 16-3. “I’m the eyes of the defense,” Boes said. “I can see the whole game and I can prevent situations from happening if I can communicate to our backs. So I’ve learned to talk a lot more out there.
“It really makes the game so much easier. I don’t think I have had to make a save in a single one-on-one situation all year. To be honest, I really haven’t had to do that much. I’ve made a few critical saves, but generally our defense has been very solid.”
The Anteaters can thank Boes, however, for their fast start. Loyola Marymount had a penalty kick in the overtime of a 1-1 tie when Boes’ experience saved the game.
“She took a peek where she was going and I was kind of leaning a little that way,” Boes said. “Then I just reacted and was able to make the save.”
The season’s biggest play? Maybe not. Certainly, it wasn’t as spectacular as the save she made during the second half of a 1-0 victory over Oregon State, a play Cano calls the “the best of the highlight film of her four years at Irvine.”
Boes blushes, admits it was “really rad” and describes what she remembers of it:
“She came down the right side with the ball and all of sudden was in the box. I’m like, ‘Oh, no!’ She went for the far side [of the goal] and I dove and I guess I got a hand on it. The ball rebounded off the far post and came back out. I’m lying there on the ground and the ball’s rolling two feet in front of me. I’m like, ‘Oh my God!’ Then somebody hit it and I deflected it again. I really don’t know what happened or how I did it. I just wanted that ball out of there.”
Boes, a graduate of Dana Hills High, has been fortunate to have had two coaches who were goalkeepers--Dean Matachierra at San Juan Soccer Club and Cano--so her reactions have been honed since she was a youngster.
“Coach Cano has helped me so much,” Boes said. “He can immediately pick up on it if you fall into bad habits and he has so many game-situation drills. He calls it ‘pressure training.’ I call it ‘hell.’
“We do all these mobility drills where he hits impossible ball after impossible ball. You’re diving all over the place and you never make a save. But as you improve, you get a little closer.”
Instincts, split-second decisions and last-minute lunges are important, but it’s no coincidence that the Anteaters’ ascension in the ranks of Division I soccer have spun up with Boes’ personal volume control.
“You can really hear her directing things now,” Cano said. “You can’t win without a good quarterback and now we think we have one of the best quarterbacks in the country.”
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A friend indeed: Sweeper Nicole Harris and Boes are close friends, but their relationship might be a bit one-sided.
“A lot of the credit for my performance this year has to go to Nicole,” Boes said. “She has great instincts and seems to always know where to be at the right time. She picks up all the loose pieces.”
So just how important is a good sweeper to a keeper?
“Let’s just say I take her out to eat a lot . . . OK, maybe I do her laundry once in a while too.”
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Tough crowd: The Anteater golf team opens its season today in the 42nd William H. Tucker Invitational at The Championship Course in Albuquerque, N.M. Eight of the nation’s top 10 teams are set to compete in an 18-team field that includes defending NCAA champion Arizona State and host New Mexico, which finished sixth last year.
“If we don’t finish last, we’re awesome,” Irvine Coach Jeff Johnston said.
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Brother act: Sophomore Doug Frichtel, Irvine’s top finisher in last weekend’s season-opening cross-country meet at Cal State Fullerton, figures to be pushed this year by his freshman brother, Robert.
Doug finished 30th with a time of 26 minutes 13 seconds over the 8,000-meter course. Robert was 53rd in 27:06.
“They get along really well, obviously, or Robert wouldn’t have decided to come here too,” Coach Vince O’Boyle said. “But you know how that sibling thing goes. Robert would love to beat his older brother. And Doug’s going to be saying, ‘No way the kid brother passes me.’ I’m looking forward to it.”
Anteater Notes
Plans are underway to change the UCI Track Stadium into a multipurpose venue that also will be the site for men’s and women’s soccer. The soccer teams now play at the old baseball stadium. Resurfacing of the track is scheduled to begin this fall and should be completed in time for Irvine to host the Big West Track and Field Championships in May. A number of the pits for the field events will have to be relocated before the area inside the track can be changed over to a soccer field. . . . Forward Traci Manz is No. 1 in the nation in game-winning goals with three. . . . Gwen Loud, who was the assistant track and field coach at Long Beach State the last two years, has been named to a similar position at Irvine. Loud replaces Ed Crawford, who was named head women’s cross-country and track and field coach at New Mexico State. . . . The men’s soccer team is 2-1-1, one victory short of tying last season’s total when the Anteaters were 3-15-2.
