Michelle Harrison - Big Sky Defensive Player of the Week?

[soccerfanatic]

For some reason, the Big Sky Conference seems to almost always select a keeper as the defensive player of the week. Last year Maren Eves was nominated 7 times and selected once. I think there was only two times all season that a non-keeper was selected. Not to slight Maren (she is a great keeper,) there were some other fabulous defensive players who got little or no credit from the conference. Just in example, Jill Christofferson was a fabulous defender and should have been nominated and selected several times. However, other than Eves, the only ISU defender to even earn an honorable mention was Karissa Henage, and that was for the Offensive Player of the Week, not for her defensive efforts. Last week, our new keeper, Harrison, earned the honor. Her play was acceptable, but I have to believe she will get much better over the next four years and will have many opportunities for the award with even more commendable play. However, last week senior Katie Miller played two of the best games any defender has ever played at ISU. Not only was she perfect on defense, she scored a goal and earned an assist. These defenders do not have the opportunity to earn many stats over the course of the year (in comparison to the offensive players.) Any offensive player (forward or midfielder) can earn offensive player of the week, and the award is split pretty evenly among the offensive positions. By tradition, the keeper already gets credited with the wins and with the shutouts, and earn stats for saves. I think it is about time that the coaches recognize some of the outstanding play received by the other defenders.

 

[isusid]

Northwest Nazarene doesn't count for anything, so the bottom line is only the USU game counted. Basically, it comes down to my office in conjunction with the coach as to who we nominate, and having worked in a conference office before where I've had to select a soccer Player of the Week, sometimes it is easier to present the case for a goalkeeper as to a defender.

In all honesty, Katie (Zigars, my new assistant), and I talked about this, and how to nominate defenders so when the need arises, the nomination sounds good. However, in this case, the bottom line was in her first collegiate start, Michelle had seven saves (that's a solid amount for a game), one in overtime, and got a win ... as good as Katie played, I think that in the opener, the freshman getting thrown in to a start due to an injury to a fifth-year senior trumped all and made for a good nomination.

We could have nominated Katie Miller easily, but I don't know if she gets selected if that makes sense. I'll say this....a Bengal is the Player of the Week ... we should be happy for Michelle, not annoyed about it....this is a first for me...getting a POTW and having folks whine about it LOL....only took 11 years thought.

ISUSID

 

[soccerfanatic]

Thanks for the explanation. I don't want to whine. I am really proud of Michelle. She did do great in her first start. And you are probably right, it must be a lot tougher to sell the conference on another defender as POTW, or we would see a lot more of them slected (instead of almost all keepers.) I guess the other consoliation is the fact that when one of our defenders wins (particularly the keeper,) it is like all of the defenders win, since defense takes a ton of teamwork. Keep up the good work and keep pushing for our Bengals with the Big Sky... and I'll try to be a little more patient.