By Craig Morgan, thesundevils.com Writer
Sun Devils women's soccer coaches were once a rarity at Arizona high school games. Kevin Boyd decided to change that when he arrived in Tempe nine seasons ago to take over the program from Ray Leone, who left to coach at Harvard.
"At a state school like this, your community around you really makes your program," said Boyd, whose team takes on Northern Arizona in an exhibition game Friday in Prescott Valley. "It creates an affinity, not only for the program but for the university as a whole. It generates future recruits that come our way because we have a good reputation and that's a product of us getting out there and working."
Boyd and his assistants, Scott Champ and Blair Quinn are racking up so many local miles that one Valley coach says he sees them at five or six of his game each year. The coaches also run Sun Devil soccer camps each year where kids of all ages can get instruction and train under the Devils' and other schools' staffs.
The Sun Devils are enjoying the fruits of that labor this season. Six of the team's eight incoming freshman are Valley products and 13 of the 31 players on the roster are from the Phoenix area, including standout seniors Cali Farquharson and McKenzie Berryhill.
That wouldn't have been possible 10 years ago when one club dominated the local scene and only a handful of Arizona players rose to elite level. More club options and better coaching and development at the prep and youth levels have produced a spike in homegrown talent.
Two members of the U.S. Women's team that won the World Cup have Arizona ties. Julie Johnston was born in Mesa and played for both Arsenal and the Sereno Soccer Club. Sydney Leroux was born in Canada but moved to Scottsdale at age 15 for better opportunities. She played for Horizon High School and Sereno.
Scottsdale's Jorian Baucom was the SEC's 2014 freshman of the year at LSU, Gilbert's Ashley Hatch was an All-American at BYU, Gilbert's Jordan Day was the goalkeeper for Texas A&M's final four team and Cave Creek's Cassie Miller won a national championship as Florida State's goalkeeper.
"I remember going to (Sereno) practices and I'd see Julie Johnston," Farquharson said. "She was the older girl that we all looked up to because she was obviously amazing. I'm sure there will be another huge increase in girl's soccer participation after we won the World Cup again. It's so inspirational and the coaches who coached those players are still around so everyone knows Arizona is a great place to play."
Boyd said the goal is to have half the Sun Devils' roster hail from Arizona cities. The program is almost there at 42 percent.
"The thing that has helped us the most is we've gotten some of the top players to come to us because they have seen that they can be very successful here so it has opened an avenue," Boyd said. "When I first got here, we couldn't get the top players. Believe me, I tried as hard as I could to get Julie Johnston and we tried to get Cassie Miller and quite a few others I could name but they felt their best shot at top-end soccer was somewhere else.
"When we got Cali and (McKenzie) is when we broke that belief. They both succeeded and now players see they can come here, be successful and play in front of their parents and friends and everybody in this community."
The Sun Devils qualified for the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in the past six seasons in 2014, advancing to the second round. The Devils have never advanced further in their 19-year history, but with Boyd's strongest senior class, a wealth of depth and just one significant loss to graduation, the team is eyeing bigger goals.
"The bare minimum is making it to the final," Berryhill said flatly. "Our whole thing is leaving a legacy: Be somebody you want other classes to look up to."
The Sun Devils will have their hands full in a Pac-12 conference that qualified a league-record nine teams for the NCAA Tournament last season, more than any conference. On the flip side, Boyd said that should help the team maintain its focus.
"I don't think our team functions well with long-term goals in front of it. We handle short-term goals well so we'll stay on that philosophy of one day at a time," Boyd said. "But in my mind, this is the most talented team we've have had yet. If the character holds up, we have the potential to take another step in our program and who knows, maybe we can leapfrog and take a really big step.
"That's the hope."
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Sun Devils women's soccer roster
Sun Devils women's soccer schedule
2015 Pac-12 Women’s Coaches Preseason Soccer Poll
(First-place votes in parentheses)
1. Stanford (8), 114
2. UCLA (3), 111
T3. USC (1), 91
T3. California, 91
5. Arizona State, 78
6. Colorado, 73
7. Washington, 71
8. Arizona, 48
9. Washington State, 34
10. Utah, 33
11. Oregon, 31
12. Oregon State, 17