\t\t\t\t\tOverview:<\/p>\n
It’s not every day you get a chance to create a college sports program from scratch.<\/p>\n
This story originally was published in BigAppleSoccer.com Nov. 16, 2013.<\/p>\n
Patrick Horne worked hard to produce a championship side at Brooklyn College.<\/p>\n
By Michael Lewis<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not every day you get a chance to create a college sports program from scratch.<\/p>\n
Patrick Horne, who has coached several Division II and III men\u2019s and women\u2019s coach was charged with that task, and he didn\u2019t hasn\u2019t run with it, he has sprinted with it.<\/p>\n
In only two seasons, the Brooklyn College women haven\u2019t only become a winning side, but the Bulldogs are NCAA tournament bound. They take on Johns Hopkins University in a Division III first-round encounter in Baltimore on Saturday at 11 a.m.<\/p>\n
To put BC\u2019s accomplishment in proper perspective, Horne was hired as a coach on March 19, 2012. He did not have much time to piece together a team for the fall season last year.<\/p>\n
Brooklyn College president Karen L. Gould wanted a women\u2019s soccer program. So did Bruce Filosa, the director of recreation, intramurals & intercollegiate athletics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have given it support,\u201d Horne said, noting BC has a new pool, new basketball court and new athletic facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a sports revival,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Now, a new women\u2019s soccer team.<\/p>\n
Horne, in turn, put in some hard work to pay back that support.<\/p>\n
Horne, who has coached soccer at six area colleges, recruited players who lived not too far from the school. His strategy was logical. Players at such high schools as Wingate H.S., James Madison, Midwood, Abraham Lincoln, Telecommunications, among others, in Brooklyn were being overlooked by other schools and what better way than to recruit players.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat works for me, I\u2019m a good recruiter,\u201d Horne said in an interview earlier this week. \u201cI focus on the local schools in the Brooklyn area. \u201cTop schools in the area \u2014 Fordham, LIU, Stony Brook, they don\u2019t scrutinize the local kids.\u201d<\/p>\n
Added Horne: \u201cSome of these payers are unaware they is an ODP. These girls don\u2019t go to showcases. They play in local leagues in Brooklyn. \u2026 A lot of girls are good in high school. If they come to college with the right attitude and with the right environment, they can get better.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, not surprisingly, he unearthed some solid players who have acquitted themselves well at the Division III level.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls cooperate,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re got to get the right players. The right players aren\u2019t always the most talented players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those players were good enough to capture the City University of New York Athletic Conference title behind a 3-1 triumph over a veteran College of Staten Island (16-2) side with a 15-3 mark after completing their first season at a promising 6-7-1.<\/p>\n
Senior midfielder Shani Abrahams, a transfer from Nyack College, played college soccer for the first time as a junior last year, earning CUNYAC newcomer of the year honors. This season she scored scored 15 goals and assisted on 10 others.<\/p>\n
Horne called Abrahams \u201cprobably the fastest girl in CUNY [soccer]. Very quick, very disciplined. Very unselfish.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Abrahams discovered there would be a soccer team beginning in the fall of 2012, \u201cshe really appreciated could play soccer for two years. Because of that attitude, it rubbed off.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one took it for granted. They were enthralled and grateful they can play soccer.\u201d<\/p>\n
It has been far from a one-women\u2019s show for the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
Sayla Flores , a 5-2 sophomore midfielder from Telecommunications H.S., also has been the key to the attack with nine goals and 10 assists. Horne noted that Flores was MVP of the CUNYAC final.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe our best player on the ball and a good attacker,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Freshman defender Jasmine Fermin, a Madison H.S. grad, has helped BC record 11 shutouts and allow only 11 goals. Fermin is \u201cvery quick, a very good defender, the best defender in the league,\u201d Horne said.<\/p>\n
Freshman goalkeeper Kimblerly Chacko enters the Johns Hopkins game with a 0.87 goals-against average.<\/p>\n
While most of the team comes from the five boroughs, the Bulldogs have a pair of intriguing influences from outside the city \u2014 freshman forward Jordan Kerwin, who hails from LeRoy, N.Y. outside of Rochester, N.Y. who led the Bulldogs with 18 goals and six assists, and sophomore defensive midfielder Shani Nakhid-Schuster, who is from Auckland, New Zealand, has contributed four goals and four assists.<\/p>\n
CUNYAC coaches rarely get players from outside the city.<\/p>\n
Kerwin\u2019s grandmother lives in Brooklyn and she wanted to experience the city life. When Horne saw what he was getting in Kerwin, he said, \u201cYou\u2019re definitely going to play,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to get Jordan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nakhid-Schuster, whose Trinidad & Tobago mother attended Brooklyn College is a professor in New Zealand (her father is a native New Zealander)<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m sure she attracted other schools,\u201d Horne said. \u201cWe\u2019re fortunate to have her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Horne realized that it will not be an easy task to topple the sixth-ranked D-III team in the country, but there are dozens of teams that would love to be in Brooklyn\u2019s soccer boots.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re like national-international school,\u201d Horne said. \u201cThey\u2019ve gotten players from all over the country. So we have a big, big task in front of us.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re very athletic, very skillful. One coach told me this is one team that can win the Division III championship.\u201d<\/p>\n
His game plan?<\/p>\n
\u201cI will tell the girls we have to continue to do things as we have during the season, but we have to do it more efficiently,\u201d Horne said. \u201cThe most I can do is have the girls play compact and defend. \u2018When you don\u2019t have the ball, you\u2019ve got to shut down the space.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re clearly a better team. They play in a top conference. That\u2019s what you\u2019re up against.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had a wonderful season. I told the girls, \u2018No one is picking us. Just go out and have fun.\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n
Given what the Bulldogs have accomplished in such a short period of time, it sounds like they have had plenty of fun already.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Overview: It’s not every day you get a chance to create a college sports program from scratch. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,6373,100,99,62165,62166,62167,62168,9,24,63,62169],"class_list":["post-148285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-college","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-bruce-filosa","tag-city-university-of-new-york-athletic-conference","tag-cunyac","tag-ncaa-division-ii","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-patrick-horne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}