G Guerrieri gives early-season take on his third-ranked Aggies

Texas A&M Soccer Coach G Guerrieri

On being 4-0 on the season…

"It’s great. I think it’s very encouraging for the younger players. You know, it’s a young team where belief is a big commodity for us right now. So, knowing that they’ve had some challenges and they’ve overcome those challenges with flying colors really sets us up well going forward."
 

On the atmosphere of the new team…

"You know, it really hasn’t changed that much. The freshman class is a tight group, they all came in really fit and they all came in all in. That just makes it to where their personalities by being comfortable where they are athletically makes them a little bit more comfortable socially, too. Then you got Kristi Leonard orchestrating a lot of the fun, excitement and togetherness of the team."
 

On the freshmen’s transition from high school to Division I soccer…

"I would say that they probably have surprised a lot of people. I’m not sure what a lot of the people outside the soccer world are saying, but you know when you’ve got people like Emily Bates who’s come in and made such a great impression, well she was a great high school player too, she was a fantastic winner in anything that she’s done. Same thing goes for Kate Hadju; you know you can throw Ally Watt in that mix; we could go through the whole lineup of the new guys to show how comfortable they are in this.

"You know, winning is something that we take pretty seriously. When we are out recruiting we are looking to recruit winners who can step in and take the pressure of the expectation of this program, but also to come in and make us better."
 

On freshman Kate Hadju…

"Well, she’s a fun person to be around, great family, you know her mom and dad have always been very supportive of her. I actually went to the same high school with her father a long time ago. But, she’s someone who is comfortable in her own skin. She came in and just blew away the fitness test to start with, so much so that we kind of just said, 'Alright, we need to go practice now, you can stop now.' So that’s exactly what you want out of a young player — she stepped right in and her personality fits right in with the other players around her."
 
"It really doesn’t change, this is Texas A&M. We expect to be the best, we expect to go in and win be competing in every single game. You know, this is a game that we wanted to play with you guys (the 2014 A&M team) last year. We were one game away from it (in the College Cup) and you know going into their place is tough — we’ve struggled at their place in the past — but it doesn’t really affect the mindset of this group. For this group it’s just their first plane flight and it’ll be their first game outside of the state of Texas.

"So, really, for us we are looking at it as it’s a business trip. We’re going to fly out on game day, we’re going to come back on game day. We’ve done that and won big games in the past, we’re expecting the very best out of the situation this time around too."