CGCC Women’s Soccer season postponed
The return of the Women’s Soccer program at Columbia-Greene Community College has been put on pause for the time being.
On Monday afternoon, Columbia-Greene Community College athletics director Richanna Lindo announced that due to abrupt changes in coaching staff, along with the number of committed student-athletes, Columbia-Greene would be withdrawing from women’s soccer varsity play for 2018-2019.
“It is disappointing not seeing athletes from the area take to the soccer field for the 2018 season,” Lindo said. “The department tried hard to keep on schedule, but with major changes within such a short time span and those changes happening so close to the start of the season, we had to take a step back and regroup to make sure we will be giving this future team the best opportunity to be successful.”
Columbia-Greene is now preparing for a change to club sport status for 2018-2019 with the hopes of competing in varsity soccer for the 2019-2020.
Club succer still remains competitive at the NJCAA level, the difference between varsity-level and club-level comes down to eligibility and postseason play.
Club teams can still use intercollegiate eligibility as they compete in extramural competition, but club sports are not eligible for postseason play and honors.
Club participants can be part-time students, whereas at the varsity-level, varsity participants must maintain a full-time course load as part of the eligibility requirements.
The Columbia-Greene Women’s soccer program started with great excitement last summer when Matt Leibowitz was announced as the new head coach. Leibowitz was tasked with building the program from scratch, however, several months away from their August 25 debut, Leibowitz stepped down as coaching, forcing assistant coach Steve Fells to take over on short notice.
While battling coaching changes, the Lady Twins budding program was also battling a lack of players to field a team.
“Excitement over ading women’s soccer did not translate into a maximum roster this season,” Lindo said. “Fall sports can sometimes have difficulty in roster numbers because they tend to start practice and official competition before classes have started, so interested students sometimes don’t even know about the program until after the first day of class.”
With the Women’s Soccer program at the Club-level for the next year, Lindo will be searching for a coach that will be able to build the program and have the Lady Twins competitive in Region III.
“We are looking for a head coach who wants the opportunity to build a program from scratch—someone who knows how rich our counties are with talented soccer players and can tap into that opportunity to keep these women close to home to start their college careers at CGCC,” Lindo said.
The hope is also that for the soccer players that have already committed, that they will stay and help Columbia-Greene build on the foundation.
The season at the club-level will allow the women currently on the team, and potentially many more, to practice together and establish chemistry that they can use toward next season. It will also help the women acclimate themselves to the level of competition at the Region III level. The NJCAA National Soccer Champions and runner-up teams have come from Region III in 7 out of the last 10 seasons.
“Having a club team this season would increase our exposure to the community as well, which in turn should help with recruiting numbers for the following year,” Lindo said. “We can view this season as a ‘soft launch.’”
Despite the disappointment, Lindo and Columbia-Greene are confident in what the future holds for Lady Twins Soccer.
“This time next year, I see Twins Womne’s soccer ready to take on the next step as a varsity competitor, secure and confident in it’s direction,” Lindo said.
