If anyone in Allentown has a clear perspective of what it takes to compete for the FIFA Women’s World Cup championship and win it like the American national women’s team did recently, it’s Kim Maurer.
The second-year girls soccer coach at Allentown High School was involved competitively with three of the starters on the American team.
Maurer said about a half dozen of her players at Allentown traveled to downtown Manhattan to enjoy watching the victory parade July 10 for the American World Cup champions.
Along with coaching American national player Tobin Heath of Basking Ridge on an ODP Regional ID team, Maurer played against Carli Lloyd and Abby Wambach. She played against Lloyd a few different times on club teams — Maurer with the Mount Laurel team and Lloyd with the Medford Strikers, where she remains very actively involved. Both were center midfielders.
“It was kind of cool playing against her. She was a beast, and I was a little skinny kid,” Maurer said of Lloyd, who excelled at Rutgers University and led the U.S. team in scoring in the World Cup, including the hat trick in the first 16 minutes of the championship game against Japan that helped stake the Americans to a 4-0 lead. The U.S. won that game, 5-2.
“They played so hard,” Maurer said of the Americans in the championship game. “They were fit and wore teams down in the World Cup and were so good inside the box.”
Maurer agreed with the general opinion that the American team started slow in the tournament and got better as it went along,
“Early on, Carli Loyd and Abby Wambach were non-existent, and the coach changed the lineup,” she said. “And that changed their attitude about playing.”
Maurer also remembers from her playing days at Old Dominion University playing against Wambach when Wambach was at the University of Florida at the turn of the millennium.
“We played them and also had friendlies against them in the spring because my coach [at Old Dominion] had coached the Florida coach,” Maurer said. “And then [Wambach] went on to become the all-time (international goal) scorer for American women’s soccer, beating Mia Hamm. Back then, who knew?”
Maurer coaches three female soccer teams and said the World Cup has raised the enthusiasm of two of them — Allentown and a Medford Under-18 team she coaches that played last weekend in a Central Jersey Invitational at Pitts Grove. But the team that could be most affected by the World Cup championship is Maurer’s ODP U13 team.
“It’s motivating all of them,” Maurer said. “Everyone’s excited about it. It’s great for the women’s game seeing the World Cup championship coming back here. The men’s team can’t win a quarterfinal round and the women’s team comes back with a trophy. There’s a women’s pro league [in the U.S.] and hopefully it will get attendance. But it’s the U13 kids who are the ones realizing with the World Cup that there could be a future for them and to go through the levels of national team play that are ahead of them. It’s affecting them because they know, with four New Jersey players on the American team, that it could be them some day. The older kids are kind of beyond that point.”
Maurer realizes her Allentown team has a lot of inner motivation. Ten starters return from last year’s 14-4-1 team that ended its season in a loss to Wall High School in the NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III semifinals. Christina Denney, who scored 17 goals last season, went on to a college career at Richard Stockton University.
“Everybody knows they have to step up,” said Kali Hartshorn, who is being moved from midfield to forward this season. “There are many players who are playing their final season, and they want to end it in a great way like it was last year.”
Hartshorn has balanced her summer working primarily in lacrosse — a sport she has given a verbal commitment in to the University of Maryland, which won the NCAA Division I championship this spring — to playing a bit of summer basketball and participating in girls soccer workouts under the observation of Maurer and varsity assistant Chris Bratty. Hartshorn has excelled in all three sports but dedicates her collegiate future to lacrosse.
“I wanted to play in a big school, and the campus is beautiful and the coaches are great,” Hartshorn said.
She managed to watch the Women’s World Cup finals and the fast start of the U.S. team.
“[The start was] absolutely ridiculous,” she said. “As much as I’ve been involved in lacrosse, I was really excited to see that and to enjoy it. Although I’ve decided on a college for lacrosse, I want to enjoy my senior year playing sports.”
For soccer, Hartshorn said communication has improved with the experience of the players that includes rising seniors Veronica Gotilla at forward, Alyssa Sloane in the midfield, Sarah Settlecowski and Hannah Robertson as center fullbacks, Toni Catelli at outside back and Ali DeSalvatore as goalkeeper.
“Communication is always the big thing,” Hartshorn said.
Maurer said she also will look at a large group of more than 20 freshmen prospects, many who can begin playing a role this season.
“We have a lot of talented freshmen,” Maurer said.
Which means a good chance for success to continue for years to come.