For some players, making the transition from forward to defender is difficult. For Christie Pearce, it wasn’t much of a change at all.
At Monmouth University, Pearce wasn’t just the best soccer player around, she was also the basketball team’s starting point guard and managed to play in two lacrosse matches.
“I did everything,” said Pearce, now a premier defender for the Power of the WUSA, as she prepared for last night’s game against the Boston Breakers at Mitchel Field. “And I was pretty good at the other sports, but I was always a soccer player.”
A very good one. Pearce became the first player from a small college to be named to the U.S. national team. She will leave with Power teammate Tiffeny Milbrett on June 30 to join the squad.
“Now, doing all that seems like a big deal, but when I was there, it wasn’t,” Pearce said of her multi-sport career. “It was kind of an extension of high school. Of course, it was more challenging, but it seemed like the natural thing to do.”
According to Milbrett, the league’s leading scorer, Pearce’s background has improved her soccer skills.
“Sometimes you can see how those other sports come into play when she does certain things,” Milbrett said. “She’s really been the key to our defense, and our defense has been everything to us.”
That’s why, despite tallying just one assist in the team’s first 10 games, Pearce has been one of the Power’s more valuable players.
“At first, I did kind of have to change my mindset,” said the 25-year-old Pearce. “When you’re a goal-scorer for a long time and then you switch, it takes a while to adjust and accept your role. Now it’s great.”
That’s easy to say when the team is in first place, as the Power are. They entered last night’s game 5-1-4 (19 points), while Boston is in sixth (3-4-3, 12).
“In a league like this, you never know exactly what is going to happen early on,” Milbrett said. “You don’t know who is going to score or how the chemistry is, but if you have a good defense, everything else generally takes care of itself. Christie has helped us get to that point.”