Hagen Has Group Slowing Down to Speed Up

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Slow down to be able to speed up.

Keeley Hagen didn't get the chance to take the time last year, hired as the Colorado State women's soccer coach in the summer. By the time she and her team were together, they had about six weeks to get ready for the season.

At the end of the fall, which saw the Rams end with a 6-8-3 mark, 5-5-1 in Mountain West play and the program's second trip to the conference tournament, the concepts had been learned and progress had been made, but it was all done under fire.

Now, they get a chance to reset and really drive the points home which will help the team progress even more.

"It's the fun part, because you get to teach and coach way more, and I think that's what all of us love to do -- to be on the field and have our players have the lightbulbs go off," Hagen said. "I think throughout this spring, there's more time that has gone by to where you can say, I think she grasped that concept. In the fall, it was sink or swim. That's the fun part of adding into their game -- hey I got better here -- and they can actually see that, where in the fall, you were playing a ton of games all the time."

At practice, they are being patient to be precise. Hagen and her staff will go over the focal point of a drill, then go over it again and again. They can stop in the middle if something goes hinky, or they see a player missed a better option. They can stop, freeze the moment and point it out. Then they can run through it again.

There are some games on the schedule – the Rams have played two with two more to go starting with Thursday night at Metro State (7:30 p.m.) – but the majority of the work being done is in practice.

It's a novel idea, welcomed by soccer programs across the country. It's a new concept for even Kenady Leighton, who just finished her sophomore year yet is enjoying her first spring offseason – her first official spring was a pandemic schedule of games.

"This is great. We're all working hard, we're learning, and a lot of these games are great learning experiences for us," Leighton said. "It's great to see our group come together and working really hard. There are a lot of areas we're really working on.

"It's great for us. The games are learning experiences but practices we're really taking the time to get a feel for each other and practice for what we want to do in the game. The teaching time we have now, we're really building."

Adding new pieces, too. There was roster turnover, which would be expected with a coach inheriting a roster without the ability to recruit and players coming to a program, many without official visits, playing for a staff which did not recruit them.

Hagen has three transfers already on campus, all of them via the transfer portal with experience at Power 5 schools. Integrating them has been important, so they welcome the pace, too. Even though she wasn't here last year, Katy Coffin has picked up on the parts of the game the Rams are targeting based on the results.

She also very much understands the end game.

"I think the culture of this … We talk about it every day. We're here to win championships, and that's what Keeley talked to me about in our first meeting," Coffin said. "I think she's very transparent with what we need to work on. Spring, we can take chances, we're learning, we're trying new things and we're growing. That's the time to get better, then you solidify everything so when you get into the fall. Everybody understands their role and what they need to be doing."

The time they are taking now is set to eliminate time – namely reaction – wasted during games in the fall.

So, Hagen's approach is to keep things really simple, to do the most basic of tasks so well it feeds into the systems they want to run and do so more fluidly consistently for 90 minutes, twice a week, week after week.

"What I tell the team it doesn't matter what tactics we do, the Xs and Os don't matter if you can't pass and receive. That's a foundation of our program," Hagen said. "We have to have a good first touch, we have to move with our first touch and then execute the passes. We start every session with that so they can improve.

"That's speed of play. How can we go in and out quickly? Speed of thought is scanning before you get it and recognizing what the defense is showing you and where are your teammates based on their runs. That takes time going over and over and trying to keep it as simple as possible is the main thing."

Some of what Hagen is teaching is new now that she has the time, which will allow the team to be more multiple during the season. However, a lot of it is a refresher course, and while her debut campaign showed some real progress, she's very up front with her team it all has to get better for them to reach championship level.

"We're working on a lot of the concepts that we were working on in the fall, and now we get time to implement and know where we're playing before we get it and know what do to in the ball," Leighton said. "We were doing it in the fall, but now we're getting extra time to make it better. We have our specific goals we're trying to accomplish, so we're taking little steps to get there.

"Spring is the time to learn and take risks. It's been great seeing what the team can do."

Especially with the time to put it all to the test.

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