New Look and Style on the Pitch

The 2022 season will see a new look for the Texas State soccer team under the direction of Steve Holeman. The program’s second-ever head coach, Holeman arrived after six years leading Lamar. Of his 27 years of head coaching experience, 21 was spent at a Southeastern Conference program while totaling 284 career victories.

Since his first year as the head coach at Auburn, he has instilled a hard-working attitude into the student-athletes. Holeman wants his teams to be one of the hardest working squads in the conference. His philosophy came from his personality growing up.

“I’ve always been a hard worker and the way I was raised,” said Holeman. “I have always found that you can always put forth great effort. And with great effort, you can accomplish really good things.”

How that plays out on the pitch and how the Bobcats will play under Holeman is by pressing teams a lot.

“It creates a lot of uncomfortable situations for the opposition. We want to limit the amount of time and space that the opponents have on the ball,” Holeman stated. “We’re going to press teams as best we can while having to be willing to adjust and adapt to what we face.”

To help the team adjust to the new strategy, TXST has assistance from senior Juana Plata. The defender transferred to Texas State after playing the last four years under Holeman at Lamar. In that time, she was a United Soccer Coaches All-Midwest Region Third Team selection, a first team All-Southland Conference pick and played at least 1,400 minutes in three of those campaigns.

“He introduces different formations which can prepare us for opponents’ styles that we might play against during the season,” said Plata. “The style is something I like and gotten used to over the last five years. It is nice to also being able to help my teammates fit into this new style.”

With the ball, the plan is for the Bobcats to keep possession with a purpose. Holeman wants the team to get forward and go to goal while also taking some risks in the final third. That includes seeing the outside backs get up and join the attack.

The last five years at Lamar saw Holeman’s teams score 211 goals with 58 multi-goal matches. The peak of the scoring came in 2019 when the Cardinals finished third in the nation with 70 goals and averaged 3.04 goals per match. That season saw them tally 16 contests with at least two goals including a stretch of 12 consecutive matches. Lamar also averaged 12.8 wins per season in those five years.

One player looks to benefit from the change in playing styles is Bailey Peschel. The senior played the past three seasons as an outside midfielder but will be making a switch to forward, a position that she played in high school. During her first three years, she tallied four goals and assists with a career best season coming last year with three assists and two goals.

“I think this new coaching style really benefits our team. We want to focus on pressing this year and we definitely have the personnel to do so,” said Peschel. “I like being the team that scores on other teams and this style of play helps us achieve that.”

Associate head coach Henry Zapata has coached with Holeman since 2013. In that time, Zapata has seen first-hand how multiple programs prosper under Holeman’s direction including the greatest one-year turnaround by a team in 2017 by Lamar.

That Cardinal squad won 18 games that year. It was a 16-win improvement from 2016 which also set a NCAA Division I women’s soccer record.

“It was a really quick adjustment as they really bought into Steve and his system right away. They had such a bad experience that the student-athletes were willing to try anything,” said Zapata. “The first year was tough in believing in it and continuing to believe in the process. The second year paid off a lot of dividends with the results they got. It made it a lot easier to believe in the system and for the future teams to do so as well.”

Along with a program 18 victories, the 2017 Lamar team won its first-ever Southland Conference regular season title, tournament championship and played in the NCAA Tournament. Two years later the Cardinals also claimed the double conference title and another NCAA Tournament appearance.

Holeman’s biggest influence from his collegiate playing days at Wake Forest was his head coach Walt Chyzowych and assistant coach Jay Vidovich.

Chyzowych led the Demon Deacon program from 1986 to 1994 until his untimely death from a heart attack. He also served as the director of the United States men’s national team (1975-81) and the program’s head coach (1976-80). Vidovich took over after Chyzowych’s passing and eventually led Wake Forest to the 2007 national championship.

They played key roles for Holeman when he led the Auburn program in 1993 in its first year of existence. It was his first coaching job despite never working as an assistant, which is typical among the coaching ranks. At the time, he was the youngest women’s soccer head coach in the country.

Other colleagues that Holeman talks to on a regular basis are Colin Carmichael at Oklahoma State, Colby Hall at Arkansas and Neil McGuire at California.

“All three of them have been super successful and they are all at major programs in Power 5 conferences,” said Holeman. “We kind of pick each other’s brain when we have different thoughts, ideas and topics to share questions. That’s a big part of me continuing to develop my philosophy.”

Also playing an influential role for Holeman in his coaching style are his assistant coaches. He looks for assistants that he gets along with, are willing to learn, question in a positive way some of the things that he does and challenges him as a head coach.

“Because I want to continue to learn and improve, I also know that we’re coaching a different type of player today than I was 15 years ago. I have to understand the differences and always want to be up to date on what makes players become their best, what it takes to motivate them, how to interact and how to develop good relationships with them,” said Holeman. “So I need assistant coaches that can complement me in what I do and help in areas where I’m not as strong to complement and create a good balance in our staff.”

With his wealth of experience and bringing a new approach on the field, Holeman is looking to take the Texas State soccer program to new heights in the recently expanded 14-team Sun Belt Conference.