By
Audrey DeAnda
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Lorona 1 of team's biggest surprises
The Arizona women's soccer team, equipped with 12 newcomers and a new head coach, is hardly the team that finished in the Pacific 10 Conference's basement last season.
Arizona has struggled since the program's 1994 inception. A 7-10-2 record in 1999 and internal conflicts within the team were enough for head coach Lisa Frasier to resign from her job, paving the way for former Iowa State head coach Cathy Klein to take over the program.
The 2000 Wildcats enter the season with just seven returning starters and will compete with three Pac-10 teams ranked in the top 20 nationally.
In the NSCAA/Adidas preseason coaches poll, 1999 Pac-10 champion Stanford is ranked seventh nationally. UCLA and Southern California are ranked 14th and 17th, respectively.
Though last year's team had a 1-7-1 conference record, Klein is confident about the upcoming season.
"These girls have as much talent as other teams I've coached," Klein said.
Klein, formerly the Big 12 Conference co-coach of the year while at Iowa State, led the Cyclones to a national ranking and three post-season appearances in her five-year tenure in Ames, Iowa.
Despite the fact that Klein faced just two Pac-10 schools - Arizona State and USC - while at Iowa State, Arizona's new coach is not worried about a tough conference schedule.
Klein plans to focus on keeping the team's intensity level consistent during her first season in Tucson.
"Winning and losing is a product of many things," Klein said. "With a 15 player-deep team, one of the main strengths of this group is that they're interchangeable."
Many key players will factor into the team's success this season, according to Klein.
Junior midfielder Twila Kaufman, notorious for her intensity on and off the field, is the team's likely leader.
Junior Shannon Monti - "clearly our No. 1 goalkeeper," according to Klein - will enter this season as the team's top goaltender for the first time in her career.
The team's greatest surprise during the summer has been the play of junior forward Kristi Lorona.
While Lorona played sparingly last season, Klein said the native Tucsonan has shown great intensity in practice.
"Lorona has been the biggest surprise," Klein said. "She's as crafty with the ball as anyone I've ever trained."
Klein and the Wildcats will kick off the 2000 campaign at Tennessee on Sept. 1 and make its home debut against Pittsburgh on Sept. 8.
According to Kaufman, the team's first week of practice went well.
"The team chemistry is great," she said "We're going to catch people off guard."
Kaufman said the team's strongest asset is that they work as a team since they don't have one stand-out player.
Goalkeeper Inger Airheart, one of five seniors on this year's team, agreed.
"It's a well-balanced team," she said. "The young kids are going to do very well. It will be just a matter of time before (the team) clicks."
