Couple of interesting and surprising transfers the last few days--a midfielder from Boston College and a forward from St. Mary's.
Both will help; how much, is not yet clear, of course.
They are both experienced, obviously, and have played against good collegiate competition
in the ACC (Agresti) and the West Coast Conference (Diaz). We know the ACC, and WCC features Santa Clara (national champ year before last)
and Pepperdine--another excellent program.
Agresti, in particular, was a three-year starter for Boston College, I believe, and
played a lot of minutes. BC has been near the bottom of the very tough ACC for a few years, but anybody who's been a three-year
starter in that league has got qualities. She's a midfielder and has apparently played in different midfield positions. I read that in the last
half of last year, she was switched to attacking midfielder. She had 4 goals and 4 assists as a junior, but fell off to 0 goals and 2 assists
last year.
She is not going to start as our attacking midfielder--Fusco will almost certainly start in that role, but needs to score more than she did
last year, for sure---but the other two/three midfield positions are open to competition among Stayart (who played well in substitute minutes last year), Midgley (limited action last year), Chatterton (who played limited minutes last year but should have played more), Eskin (limited minutes last year but arguable should have started before Nelson on the wing IMO), new transfer Sizzy from Penn, plus Dakota Brown (a promising mid who played limited minutes last year), plus Dipasupil, who has played outside mid on the left. She's been our best free-kick specialist but the rest of her game isn't
anything to get excited about, IMO. And Giselle Washington as well. The coaches desperately need to find a GOOD holding mid in that group or from an incoming frosh, and nobody really jumps out. Washington has the size and body for it--but the rest of her game is best not spoken about. Stayart has the body and the game for the position--but we may need her more in an attacking or central role as she can shoot--and shooting was a problem for us last year. I don't know if Agresti or Sizzy have played holding mid--but I do think Agresti will see a lot of playing time for us, maybe in the 8 position (center mid). She and her twin sister both played for the U.S. U20 national team in 2020, so there is talent. (Agresti's sister was a very well-regarded defender for BC, and I think she would be a graduate transfer player this year as well--but she's not on the BC roster and not sure if she's playing this coming year or not. She'd be good to have!)
As for Diaz, I read that last year as a senior, she scored 6 goals for St. Mary's, which is a mid-level WCC team, not as good as Santa Clara, Peppedine, but a more than respectable program in a good conference. She didn't play much as a junior. She's been on the Mexican national team roster, which speaks well of her qualities. I suspect she will back up Thomas and Simmonds this year, or perhaps could start up front along with those two if we play a 4-3-3. We'll have to see what she sort of skill set she has---but we definitely needed another forward. We essentially had no other forwards after Thomas and Simmonds except Bartholomew, who played very limited minutes last year. So it was crucial to get another forward with some experience. Eskin played some forward last year, but that was a silly decision as she simply isn't in any way a forward at this level.
The crucial tasks for our coaches will be finding players who can slot into the defensive roles vacated by Raines and Burdette and play well. Whoever gets those jobs may not play AS well as Raines and Burdette--but they have play better than decently or we could have problems. On the whole, we will have a roster with a nice mix of talent and experience. We've got talent. The milliion-dollar question is, can the coaches maximize the team's potential by putting the right players in the right positions and building a cohesive unit? They most certainly did not do that last year--pay little attention to the co-SEC East champs PR--and they totally blew a chance to take the program to another level with our national status, recruiting, all of it. Our level went down, we were a mess in our last two games, and then our two best players fled the program. Even without them, our level needs to go up this year. By the end of this next season, IMO, we'll know whether this staff is up to the challenge or not.