By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
SALEM, Ore.– The Luciane Wentz-era is underway at Chemeketa Community College with the Women’s Soccer program.
Coaching came around to Wentz while playing in college, Wentz spent time playing for William Carey University as well as Thomas University to go with five years of playing professionally down in her home country of Brazil. Slowly making her way to Oregon where she’s entering her first year with the Storm, who are two years removed from the NWAC Playoffs and winning the NWAC South Region Title.
Now, the Storm are looking to bounce back and return to the postseason under Wentz.
Starting back on July 8, Chemeketa has been working on their fitness and team chemistry with their new freshman like Evelyn Loebl from Sprague, transfers like Mira Thornton (who was a All-NWAC Second Team selection at Portland Community College last Fall) and returners like Clarisa Lemus as their preseason schedule kicks off next week with friendlies.
“We recruited really well this year with the hopes that we can go back being one of the top programs. I’m trying to focus on the kids who want to make something out of it after two years. It’s more of building the program for being successful on the field, but also in the classroom so that they have the grades to move on to do it,” starts Wentz. “(Assistant Coach) Seth (Williams) and I, we’ve been trying to make it two days for fitness, like straight-up fitness, and get the cohesiveness of the team around the other three days We’ve had three trainings a week the whole month of July and now we’re everyday…trying to get comfortable with each other and now we have our friendlies next week to see where people might fit.”
Capitol Futbol Club in Salem will host one of the sites for the NWAC Friendlies on Tuesday and Wednesday. It’s like a jamboree of sorts to give teams an opportunity to see where they’re at and where they can go before the season gets underway. For the Storm, they’ll play Highline on Tuesday, August 19, at 3:30pm on Field 3 at the CFC Complex and play Whatcom Wednesday, August 20, at 10am at CFC Field 2.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
