By
Audrey DeAnda
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA senior forward Keri Kennedy-Weber is the UA women's soccer team's "super sub" - a utility player that brings a well-needed rest to the team's starters.
In 2000, however, the senior is anything but a backup.
Coming off the bench, Kennedy-Weber has scored three goals in the team's last three games - including the game-winning score against New Mexico on Thursday - to earn the Wildcats their first victory of the season.
Kennedy-Weber, who also scored the Wildcats' only goal in Saturday's tie against Evansville, was somewhat of a good-luck charm for Arizona's offense last week.
"Every time I went in, it was like within the first five minutes we scored a goal," she said. "With the goal against New Mexico, I was in the game for five minutes, then the other goal (against New Mexico), I was in for like 10 seconds."
But Kennedy-Weber won't take all the credit for the goals.
"Someone has to give me the perfect ball in order for me to score," she said. "So it's not just me."
Being the team's leading scorer is a new role for Kennedy-Weber - prior to 2000, the senior had failed to score a goal in her three-year Arizona career.
She credits a lot of her offensive intensity to head coach Cathy Klein.
"(Klein has) developed me more in the last couple of months than I've developed in the last couple of years," Kennedy-Weber said. "She works with your talents and your skills and develops it."
Klein, Arizona's first-year head coach, moved the Coto de Caza, Calif. native from the outside halfback position - where she had spent the last three years -into the forward position.
"She thought I would be more of a threat in the forward position," Kennedy-Weber said.
Klein said she is not surprised that Kennedy-Weber, coming off the bench, is the team's leading scorer.
"I think that we have to find goals from everybody and anybody," Klein said. "We really don't have that person who's going to carry us offensively, so everyone has to contribute."
In Thursday's overtime game against New Mexico, Klein decided to send Kennedy-Weber in with less than five minutes left.
"I told her to use her speed and size to get underneath," Klein said.
The team followed the coach's instructions, and they scored the game's go-ahead goal within a minute.
"I think Keri's good enough, quick enough and athletic enough to get it done," Klein said. "But ... so are the other five forwards. We have six forwards that need to score goals, and I hope the rest of them take her example."
Junior midfielder Twila Kaufman said Kennedy-Weber is the perfect role model for the team.
"She's a great example of how everyone has a role on this team and it doesn't matter how much you play," Kaufman said. "She proves you can be the biggest impact on this team, playing 10 minutes at a time."
Kaufman said the team needs to pick up on Kennedy-Weber's level of intensity.
"If everyone worked as hard as they could, the whole time they were in - like Keri was doing - we'd have a lot more victories," Kaufman said.
Kennedy-Weber is perfectly happy contributing from the bench.
"All of us on the field have our own role," Kennedy-Weber said. "Hopefully, eventually, I'll earn that role as a starter."
Until then, the UA soccer team will continue to rely on their "super-sub."
