Taylor Huff Called Into U.S. U-20 WYNT Camp
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CHICAGO, Ill. – Tennessee sophomore Taylor Huff is one of 23 players selected for the U.S. U-20 Women's Youth National Team training camp beginning Wednesday in Chula Vista, Cali.
The camp will run May 11-19 and include two friendly matches against Costa Rica at the Elite Athlete Training Center on May 15 and 18. Both matches will be held as closed-door scrimmages.
With the goal of expanding the player pool, head coach Tracey Kevins has named just one player to this camp from the U.S. roster that won the Concacaf Women's U-20 Championship earlier this spring – midfielder Sally Menti -- who suffered a wrist injury during the USA's first match at the tournament and was ruled out of the rest of the competition.
Costa Rica is the host nation for this August's 2022 FIFA Under-20 Women's World Cup and did not participate in the Concacaf qualifying tournament. The USA punched its ticket to the World Cup with a dominant run at CWU20, rattling off seven straight victories and a 49-0 goal differential to win its record seventh regional title at this age level.
It's the first U.S. U-20 WYNT call up for Huff, who finished her rookie season at UT with 10 goals and five assists. For her efforts, she was named SEC Freshman of the Year and finished the season ranked No. 4 on Top Drawer Soccer's Postseason Freshman Top 100.
U.S. U-20 WOMEN'S YOUTH NATIONAL TEAM ROSTER - MATCHES VS. COSTA RICA
GOALKEEPERS (3): Nadia Cooper (Washington State; Houston, Texas), Leah Freeman (Oregon; Berkeley, Calif.), Teagan Wy (SoCal Blues; Rancho Santo Margarita, Calif.)
DEFENDERS (7): Macy Blackburn (Texas Tech; Fort Worth, Texas), Avani Brandt (Stanford; Syosset, N.Y.), Sydney Cheesman (Colorado Rush; Lafayette, Colo.), Sydney Jones (Ohio State; Cincinnati, Ohio), Makenna Morris (Clemson; Germantown, Md.), Evelyn Shores (Tophat SC; Atlanta, Georgia), Kolo Suliafu (SoCal Blues; Ontario, Calif.)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Korbin Albert (Notre Dame; Grayslake, Ill.), Sofia Cook (UCLA; Huntington Beach, Calif.), Annie Karich (Beach FC; Surfside, Calif.), Carina Lageyre (Florida United; Cooper City, Fla.), Sally Menti (Santa Clara; Seattle, Wash.), Jaedyn Shaw (Washington Spirit; Frisco, Texas), Jillian Shimkin (Penn State; Rockville Centre, N.Y.)
FORWARDS (6): Taylor Huff (Tennessee; Mansfield, Ohio); Jameese Joseph (NC State; Beltsville, Md.); Camryn Lancaster (TCU; Mansfield, Texas), Mia Minestrella (Beach FC; Redondo Beach, Calif.), Katherine Rader (Florida United; Stuart, Fla.), Riley Tiernan (Rutgers; Voorhees, N.J.)
The U.S. is set to kick off the U-20 Women's World Cup on Aug. 11 vs. Ghana. The Final Draw for the tournament was held last week in Costa Rica and the USA was drawn into Group D alongside reigning world champion Japan, Netherlands and Ghana.
No surprise here. Ms. Huff is standout in a freshman class of standouts. It's interesting to me that she is named as a forward. With her skillset, I would prefer to play her in the mid under the theory that she will maximize her opportunities to touch the ball and affect the game there; however, there is no doubt she has tremendous goal scoring ability. I'll be interested to see how the new coach views her role this fall.
Excellent post ️️️I completely agree and almost made the exact same post after hearing her selection. She played essentially a wing role in a 4-4-2 last season and was hugely influential. She played box to box--and her long stride and athleticism enables her not only be a scoring threat but also to chase down and challenge opposing attackers with the ball in the midfield or in our defensive half. She basically bossed her side of the field--and that is, to use a word that Pensky liked to use, "massive." We did not have that on the left with Dipasupil and Zaluski, who have qualities and helped us win games, to be sure, but are not that pacey, physical or athletic in run of play. I wonder if we might see more of Maria Nelson this season--an athletic player who came back last year from her knee injury and made some contributions in limited minutes. Finding the right spot for her is, I hope, something the coaches are thinking about, as she can play.
In a podcast not long before he left, which Mad discovered and posted here, Pensky noted that this spring the coaches tried a 3-5-2 formation with Huff playing essentially the 10/attacking-mid role, and he said that it was quite effective. That puts Huff more in front of goal in our attacking half and would, ideally, give her more shooting opportunities as opposed to playing mostly on the right side of the field. And I assume she can be equally effective getting back to play some defense. So then we'd have Burdette, Fusco, Katz, Huff and, I presume, Dipasupil/Zaluski spliting time at the last midfield/wing spot. one other player in the midfield. The three in the back would be...who? Renie would be one; not sure who played the other two positions in the spring but would like to know. I'm guessing Washington and/or Hennessey got some action.
While Huff could be an excellent forward, no doubt, we've got George and Thomas up front and that's not going to change. With her outstanding field coverage, Huff is certainly most effective for us in the middle of the field. We'll see where she plays for U.S.
I’m not disappointed that Florida went for a discounted no name coach. Was worried they were going to get FSU’s Krikorian .Florida has hired its new coach--and the collegiate soccer world is talking. The Gators hired 45-year-old Samantha Bohon, the former head coach of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical College, a Div. 2 school, located in Florida, that I've never heard of. It was NAIA in sports for a long time before being elevated to Div. II four years ago. She had twice as many wins as losses at Embry-Riddle, but other than that not a lot of achievements. She WAS a 3-time All ACC player at Duke--AND an assistant at....Tennessee for four years back in the early 2000s. So she's got some high-level background, just not as a a coach, and that's why the soccer crowd on the board I follow, which apparently has a sizeable number of current or ex soccer coaches, are fairly appalled at this and other Div. 1 soccer hires in recent months. They can't understand why big programs (Southern Cal, UCLA, Florida) have made, so to speak, small hires. Big programs tend to hire experienced winners, not assistants or Div. II coaches, and this soccer crowd thinks athletic directors, with these hires, are not giving the sport and the programs the respect it deserves. They point out--and rightly so--that the Florida football program would never hire a Div. 11 coach. True, but plenty of former assistant coaches have been hired by major football programs--though they tend not to turn out so well! (Hello, Jeremy Pruitt and Holly Warlick!).
The two programs that have hired big: FSU, with Pensky, and Georgia, with McAlpine, who, I read today, cut 14 players from the Bulldog team following the spring season. I think he means business. Kentucky hired the former coach at the Univ. of Wisconsin--Milwaukee. (Bruce Pearl came to Tennessee from Wisconsin-Miami.) I know nothing about the Kentucky hire but there's a pretty strong consensus on the soccer coach that the Wildcats got a good coach. As for the Kirt hire, there wasn't a lot of reaction to it--but those that did react were politely pleased and said it, at the least, was a good short-term move as it kept the current group together. It seems that Kirt is pretty well know in the collegiate soccer community after 15 years at Tennessee, and some were happy that such a...wait for it..."nice guy" was getting his chance. I hope Kirt has got some steel behind his nice personality, as the SEC is a dog-eat-dog conference, and only those who have it all together in all phases are going to succeed--starting with recruiting.
For Bohon, This Time Was Right Time - Florida Gators
The U20 Women's World Cup is taking place in Costa Rica from mid- to late August. Huff is participating in what I believe is the next-to-last U20 training camp--one designed to, as the U.S. Soccer Federation puts it, "expand the talent pool." The spring an entirely different U.S. U20 WNT won the Concacaf World Cup qualifying tournament. Only 1 player from that squad is on the Huff's squad. After this camp, I believe the coaches will analyze both groups and invite a certain number to the pre-Women's World Cup camp, and then from that group pick the final roster. It's either that or the coaches will simply pick the 25 or so players they want for the pre-World Cup camp and they will constitute the final roster--meaning nobody gets cut. So we'll see if Huff impresses enough to make the final camp/roster.
Four years ago Vol player Erin Gilroy made the U20 WWC final roster in just this way. She was invited to the last talent identification camp, impressed so much that she made the final roster AND became the starter at left forward. Maybe Huff can be the same.
The only downside is that if Huff makes the WWC team, she could be away with the national team for the entire month of August. At the least, she would be away from early August to August 17, when the last match in the U.S. group is played. The U.S. is in a group with Ghana, The Netherlands and Japan. If the U.S. finishes in the top 2 of its group--and there is a good chance it will--it will play in the quarterfinals, then possible a semifinal and final. The World Cup ends on August 28. If Huff makes the roster and the U.S. gets to the last stages of the tourney, Huff is going to miss our first games against UNC and Duke, and that won't be good. It's a competitive tournament, some good teams, so there's no guarantee that the U.S. will reach the knockout round. Maybe.
I just realized that since you found the score, you've probably already been to this site and know all of this already! Apologies if you do!
USA To Face Ghana, Netherlands And Japan At 2022 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup In Costa Rica