Winning the gold medal with the deaflympic team in Taipei, Taiwan in 2009 has not satisfied Coach Yon’s desire for winning yet another.  Coach Yon has trained periodically with the team since 2009 and now things are in full swing to solidify the roster.  The deaflympic team has a number of tryouts before finalizing the squad and the next step in the process will occur the last weekend of this month in Atlanta, Georgia.  This is an invitation only tryout and Coach Yon got the nod to defend her spot on the team.  On March 28th there will be a fundraising game in Columbus, Ohio where the deaflympic team will be playing an exhibition game before the mis-Columbus Crew match.  However, the biggest event will be this summer in Turkey.  The Pan Am World Cup will be held in Ankara, Turkey from July 10-21st and Coach Yon is hopeful she will be a part of the journey.

The Lady Tiger’s coaching staff is continuing with its commitment to give the players of Grace the best instruction possible.  Coach Erich Heger will be taking the USSF national licensing course this spring.  Coach Heger mainly works with the keepers at Grace and has already obtained his MSYSA goalkeeping certificate as well as his E-license.

“Coach Heger exemplifies the type of person we want working with the young people here at Grace,” commented Coach Vissia.  “Erich is always looking at areas in his life where he can improve, is totally others-focused, and is highly driven to reach the goals he has set before himself.  He challenges our athletes to become better soccer players but more importantly to become better individuals.  He simply looks at obtaining his national license as the next step in helping those around him.”

The national licensing course will be held in Lansing and will consist of 40 plus hours of lecture, instruction, simulated coaching situations, and play.  Coach Heger will be dedicating six days in an effort to give the Lady Tigers another edge in the upcoming season.

Coach Heger is looking forward to his second season on the bench at GBC

Joanne Coffey currently holds several goal scoring and points records.

The Grace Bible College women’s soccer team will be in its third season of existence next fall and although the side has gone through the typical growing pains of an expanding  program, growth is taking place.  “This is a great time to be a Lady Tiger,” stated Coach Vissia.  “The squad is increasing in numbers, developing as a unit, and maturing as time goes along.  To be honest, our record board is filled with numbers that are ready to be broken.

Kerie Rudd has played a Grace for two seasons and holds every school goalkeeping record available.

“Grace is the perfect place to be for an incoming player looking to make their mark on a program.  They could not only step into a leadership role immediately but hold many school records along the way.  This is truly a unique situation in which a player can rewrite the college’s record books and make an impact on the team from the moment they walk on campus until they graduate.  Often times players need to put their time in before they get an opportunity to shine at the collegiate level.  This simply isn’t the case at Grace currently.  Chances for incoming players to establishing lasting impressions is a reality here at Grace.  We are currently going through one of those rare windows of opportunity that will close in a few years.  Players who take advantage of this time period will influence the program for years to come.”

Courtney Glinka

Courtney Glinka recently made the decision to join the Grace Women’s Soccer Team for the 2012 fall season.  Courtney will be graduating from Carman-Ainsworth High School in Flint, Michigan.  Courtney has been playing soccer for twelve years and has been on the varsity team at Carman-Ainsworth all four years of her high school career.  She has played in the CANUSA games twice for the US soccer team.  Both times she participated the games were played in Canada.  Courtney was awarded the most improved player on the varsity team in 2009 and has continued to improve her skills each year.  She was named as a captain on the varsity team in both her sophomore and junior years.

“I had a chance to go down to the Flint area a few weeks ago to watch Courtney play,” commented Coach Vissia.  “I was very impressed with her speed and ability to create separation from her opponents.  She will be a valuable piece of the puzzle as we continue to build next year’s team.  I believe Courtney can be one of those elite players that the program can build around.  I’m looking forward to seeing how her love for the game of soccer and her desire to win affects those around her.”

Courtney is also a hard working student who has been on the honor roll for three years.  She is a well-rounded individual who has not only participated in soccer and kept a solid GPA, but she has been on the swim team for the past two seasons and is involved with her church youth group.  Courtney’s desire to set her own agenda aside and focus on the needs of others has been witnessed by her two mission trips to New York.  Courtney added, “I am really looking forward to becoming a part of the Grace family.  I am so excited to be a part of the soccer team next fall.”

Grace Bible College has been invited to attend the Premier College Combines this winter.  The event will be held at Oakland Yard in Waterford, Michigan on February 11, 2011.  The format for this specific combine will be a 7 v 7 format where high school aged players will get an opportunity to perform in front of college coaches.  Each player present will have the opportunity to participate in a minimum of three matches during the day with a possibility of more play depending on the individual and the circumstances.

“This combine will allow our coaching staff to see a number of players we typically would not get to see in a regular spring season,” stated Coach Vissia.  “We realize that the majority of players will choose a college with 4 hours of where they live so the Waterford, Michigan location fills that requirement nicely.  We are still looking to fill a few holes in our rotation and are hopeful to make several contacts at this event.  It will be a great opportunity to increase the college’s exposure to higher-end players.”

The 2012 fall season schedule for the Lady Tigers is coming together nicely with several new additions.  The coming year’s schedule boasts a few teams that Grace has not competed against in the past such as Robert Morris University – Springfield, Brescia University, Oakland City University, and Robert Morris University – Lake County.  Once again the Tigers will face the three other regional team.  Maranatha and Northland will travel to Grand Rapids while Grace will make the trip west to Lincoln University.  Other road trips will include a visit to Mount Mary College outside of Milwalkee and a jount down to Kentucky and southern Indiana where the Tigers will face Brescia followed by Oakland City.  Other familiar teams include Cornerstone, Andrews, Ohio Christian, and Finlandia.

“We are looking forward to the exciting 2012 season,” commented Coach Vissia.  “We are confident that we will be competitive next year.  The schedule is a challenging one yet it will stretch our team to continue to grow.  We’ve worked hard to keep several weekend road trips since those seem to be the times when the team truly bonds.”  The schedule is not fully completed yet as there are still 3 dates available.  Those dates will fill up quickly and the full schedule will be released at that time.

The women’s soccer team at Grace finished their season almost a month ago and the questions of offseason workouts, training, and preparation for next season start to be entertained by the players.  It is clearly good to have a few weeks to process the past season, evaluate life, and consider future decisions about the sport.  The offseason is the time for athletes to separate themselves from the pack through hard work and constant touch on the ball but few do it.  All players improve during the regular season but only the driven individual set on being their best will dedicate the offseason to the sport they love.

Soccer parallels life in so many ways but having an offseason is not one of them.  As disciples of Christ the question is, “Are we constantly striving to live for the glory of Christ or are we buying into the world’s ideas of an offseason?”  (time for yourself, time that you deserve, you’ve worked so hard.)  Is there an urgency in the way we live or do we just go through the motions day in and day out?  Do we truly believe the words of Romans 14:10-12 that we will all stand before the judgment seat of God and be asked to give an account of ourselves before the Almighty?  If we do, certainly our lives will display the fact because time is short and the fields are ripe.

Imagine coming into preseason training camp next fall after having totally neglected physical fitness and not touching a ball since the previous October.  The coach is disappointed, your teammates have been let down, and the chances of making an impact on the field are minimal.  Now imagine the opposite.  You come into camp a physical machine, mentally prepared to battle, and with the touch of Maradona.  Everyone around you realizes that you have sold out and are a force to be dealt with.  How much greater the impact on Judgment Day?  Can you imagine God Almighty saying to YOU, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”?  This is what’s at stake – take no offseason and be one that stands in the gap for God.  Now is the time to take back what is rightfully the Lords and to glorify Him at all costs.

The Tamarac Center for Health and Wellness in Fremont, MI recently hosted a seminar presented by Whitney Kalajainen, a Physical Therapist from Spectrum Health Gerber Memorial Hospital. The information presented was for coaches and trainers of athletes of all levels.  Physical Therapists are taking a much more active role in not only treating injuries but developing training programs to prevent them.  The program that was presented was the PEP program of the Santa Monica Sports Medicine Foundation, http://smsmf.org/pep-program.   Research has shown a significant reduction in the number of knee injuries including season ending ACL tears with the adoption of these techniques.  One such program boasts a 40 % reduction in their incidence.

The program involves instruction of the athletes  with a focus on proper leg alignment  during  jumping, landing, and pivot movements.  Proper technique is the key to prevention.  Also, specific exercises  are taught to strengthen both the quadriceps and hamstrings.  Muscles are conditioned through specific balance moves which all protect the knee.  All of these exercises can be adopted by a team and made part of their functional warm-up prior to each game and practice.  “Practice time is valuable, but with slight modification of our functional warm-up  we can significantly increase the safety of our players.  We’ve all either known someone or heard about these devastating injuries.  It’s encouraging that we as coaches can do something towards their prevention,” commented Coach Heger.

The awards banquet for the Lady Tiger’s soccer team was held Sunday evening honoring the effort the ladies displayed throughout the season.  Close to fifty people gathered to acknowledge the efforts of the team and join in the season wrap-up.  “It was a nice wat to officially end the season,” commented coach Yon.  “It was fun remembering where this team ended up compared to where we started.”

All of the players from the team were recognized and several walked away with awards.  Six ladies recieved the GBC Scholar-Athlete Award.  This honor is given to student-athletes who were able to achieve a 3.0 or higher during their past two semester at Grace.  Danae Benton, Erin Benton, Whitney Bunch, Tina Mattias, Bree Stowers, and Laura Vinton all recieved the award.  Two GBC players placed on the Mid-West All-Regional Tournament Team.  Those two slots were reserved for Joanne Coffey, 9 goals and 1 assist on the year, and Kerie Rudd, 230 saves, 43 goals allowed, 3.19 goals against average, and 4 shutouts.  The Most Improved Player was given to Anna Alonzo, a freshman who saw a significant increase in playing time as the season progressed because of her vast improvement.  Joanne Coffey recieved the Iron Maiden Award.  This honor goes to the player who displayed an incredible amount of heart and desire, hates to lose, and plays through pain, sickness, and injury to benefit the team.  The final award was the Most Valuable Player going to Kerie Rudd.  Kerie stepped up time and time again for the Tigers this fall and was truly the backbone of the team.

The coaching staff is looking forward to the 2012 recruiting class.  The hope is to retain as many players as possible from this year’s team and add incoming talent in order to compete at a higher level next year.

The Lady Tigers will have an opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments of this past soccer season on November 13th.  The year-end banquet will be held at Fire Mountain on Alpine with the presentation starting at 5:00 pm and dinner to follow.  The group is looking forward to getting together as a full team one last just to enjoy each other’s company and to reminise.

“These ladies were able to grow as players and as a team.  It should be enjoyable to honor their hard work and all the effort they exerted in order to make the season a successful one,” said Coach Vissia.  “This season was never about the wins and losses but about glorifying Christ to our fullest.  Whether we were at practice, in a restaurant, in the midst of a match, or in a hotel, I was always confident that these ladies were representing Christ in a positive manner.”

Family and friends are welcome to attend the banquet.  Along with discussing the highs and lows of the year, several awards will be handed out including the Most Valuable Player, Most Improved Player, Tiger Award, and several All-Regional Player Awards.  “It will be a great way to wrap up the year in a positive way,”commented Coach Yon.  “It is long season and sometimes players forget how far they’ve come.  It is our hope that the ladies can realize their enourmous progress from the middle of August until now.”

The team focusing on what matters after a hard fought match