By Mark Campbell
Whether it’s a touchdown, a goal or a home run, Midwestern State is always one of the top Division-II schools in the nation.
What makes MSU the 2nd most winningest team in the history of The Lone Star Conference? How can Midwestern State be an elite school every year, while Division-I schools tend to cycle through years that they’re good and years they’re bad?
“I don’t know why MSU is always good at sports. Good recruits, I guess?” Christopher Portillo, a freshman fan, said.
“Good recruits” is an understatement. More like good recruiting.
According to the MSU website, 72 athletes played together in high school, which currently play together at MSU. Two on the men’s basketball team, 39 on the football team, eight on the men’s soccer team, two on the women’s basketball team, five on the cross country team, and 16 on the women’s soccer team.
Since MSU has 12 sports total, these numbers are equivalent to having six people on each sports team, already possessing prior experience playing together. This doesn’t even account for the amount of athletes who played together on club team sports.
According to West Texas A&M and Incarnate Word’s websites, they average about 3.5 athletes per team, almost half of MSU’s amount.
So what does this even mean? So we have about three more athletes per team with prior experience, does this really matter?
“I think the biggest advantage of having girls that played together in high school is they’re built in togetherness,” Heather Primavera, assistant girls soccer coach, said. “It is important to have a team get along and work well together.”
Having the three extra people who already possess experience playing together in high school makes it so there are less people who need to build chemistry with one another.
Chemistry is detrimental to any sports team. Take the Miami Heat, for example. They took a few of the best basketball players, who had never played together, and expected them to do great things their first year as a team. Well, they lost in the NBA finals. Most critics said the loss came from being too inexperienced as a team and they lacked chemistry.
If Miami had better team chemistry, you can bet they might have started the 2012 season by raising a banner.
“The advantage with already playing with them is you know their style of play,” Callie Briseno, freshman soccer player, said.
Briseno came to MSU knowing her old teammate at Amarillo High, Alyssa Cooper, and also her older sister, Leisha Briseno.
“Being a freshman this year and having them [Alyssa and Leisha] here helped me get to know the other girls a lot quicker than most of the other incoming freshmen,” Briseno said. “Most of us have actually been playing with or against each other for years through club and high school that we already know each other.”
Establishing an early relationship with her team helped Briseno start in 16 games as a freshman.
VcMor Eligwe, junior soccer player, used to play with Zach Funk at McKinney High School. He said he benefits from this experience together because of the chemistry they’ve developed.
Funk played on several teams before he settled into MSU. Eligwe noted that because of Funk’s experience from playing on a wide variety of teams, he has a developed a sense of leadership on the field.
“It worked out because I think we both got a lot of experience playing with other forwards, so now we both have improved our style of play,” Eligwe said. “It’s made us better players individually.”
Eligwe and Briseno are grateful for the relationships that were already established before having the opportunity to play collegiately with their old teammates. They both believe that the bond made prior to MSU has helped their college athletic career.
Recognizing that chemistry is important to any sports team, and noticing that the MSU teams start off each season by skipping the “name-game” step really opens up more time for practice, rather than meeting and greeting. Obviously, the more you practice, the better you become.
In the Fall 2011 and Spring 2012 sports matchups against our rival Incarnate Word, we had 12 wins and four losses.
“It’s not that we necessarily have the better team, but from what I’ve witnessed, we have more chemistry than they do on the field,” Eligwe said.
Midwestern State athletics is ranked 319 of the 1,004 colleges that are ranked on CollegeProwler.com. Incarnate Word is 458th, and West Texas A&M is 566th.
Midwestern’s teams seem to have a special bond within them. MSU’s recruitment process of staying local and getting athletes who know each other already is golden.