New coaches take lead of youthful Sobrato Field Hockey team

With two familiar faces at the helm, the Sobrato field hockey team is looking to build itself up and improve on last year’s three-win season.
Leading the way are a pair of former players who will split the coaching duties. Megan Rotter and Haley Klingenberg return to their Alma Mater to take over the coaching duties for Mikael Niehoff.
After Sobrato, Klingenberg went on to play at UC Santa Barbara where she graduated in 2012. Rotter continued to play after Sobrato on club teams.
They said the biggest transition will be understanding all the high school rules. Klingenberg said there are nuances between the college game and the high school game that they need to understand as they move forward.
Then, they need to get to know the girls better. They were hired on late in the summer, so they were still understanding who is suited to play where.
The coaches said Alex Diaz has stepped up to help the team along as it goes through the coaching transition. She created a Facebook page and helped organize team activities during the summer.
Klingenberg and Rotter said she has made the transition easier by showing them what the team was doing last year as well as what players’ strengths are.
“She was the coach before we got here,” Rotter said.
Diaz will play defense for the Bulldogs.
Also playing a key role on the team is Randi Emmons, who will play mid and forward this year.
“She’s a really good player and brings the girls together and really helps them out,” Klingenberg said.
Sobrato will feature seven seniors, which will make up about half the team. The coaches said they want to see the seniors be able to build up the juniors to give them control of the team next year.
Their overall goal is for the team to be communicating well by the end of the year, as well as exhibiting good chemistry both on the field and off.
“I feel like we have a really solid group of girls, especially for varsity. … They’re already ready to go and playing together,” Klingenberg said.
Klingenberg and Rotter will split the duties, but also integrate the junior varsity team to give those girls a leg up for the next season. They said when they played, they didn’t know the JV players very well and being able to blend the two groups will help in the continuity of play and the chemistry as players move up.
Sobrato is looking to bounce back from it’s three-win campaign from last season.
The Bulldogs are moved up a division this year thanks to a mass exodus from the Blossom Valley League in field hockey. For the most part the division will be status quo from last year’s West Valley Division, but will now also feature the two lowest teams from the Santa Teresa – St. Ignatius and Del Mar.
Klingenberg and Rotter said they will have to take a wait and see approach to how this will affect the team.
Sobrato’s first league game is slated for Branham on Sept. 24.