Five questions with men's head coach Chris Apple

Following this past weekend's contests, I had the opportunity to talk with men's head coach Chris Apple about his team. Check out what Apple had to say about UR's big win against #7 Calvin, his 3+ fantastic freshman, and the luxury of having someone as talented as senior Tom Sorrentino ('12) take care of the throw-in/corner kick duties.

Head Coach Chris Apple

What does beating a team ranked as high as #7 Calvin do for your team heading into the rest of the season, especially after graduating a number of key players from last year?

I think it just continues to help build confidence and belief in ourselves. This team knows that they’re good, but until you have that first big test in the first match in the real season, you’re never really a hundred percent sure how you’ll respond. So, the win does a lot of things for our confidence and for our belief in ourselves. But at the same time, one win doesn’t mean you’ve arrived and one loss doesn’t mean you’ve sunk. It is a long season and we just have to keep getting better.

What were your initial thoughts when your team went down 1-0 early to Calvin?

Going down a goal early to a good team like Calvin, you begin to question how the boys are going to respond. But they equalized almost right away and came back to win against a really good team in Calvin.

Last year, Tom Sorrentino took care of the throw-in/corner kick duties. He was named UAA Player of the Week recently, which in large part was due to the impact he made this past weekend with his throw-ins/corner kicks. How important is it to have someone like him who has the ability to create scoring opportunities from those aspects of the game?

His throw-in in particular is a lethal weapon for us. We were able to score a couple of goals on it last year and in our first game against Calvin, it got us two goals. Having a guy like [Sorrentino] is especially important against a team like Calvin where the scout on them is that they are great on restarts, long throw-ins and they are big and strong and physical. And to beat them at their own game is pretty neat and that shows how determined our guys were in the penalty box.

You had three freshman see significant time in your teams’ first two games- forwards Alex Swanger, Jarvis D’Souza, and Shane Dobles- and they all played extremely well. Why exactly did you have the confidence to play them in the big games this past weekend?

Well, all three of those guys throughout the preseason training camp showed that they were capable of playing at this level. They’re athletic, they’re confident. They don’t play like freshmen. And there’s even like three or four more kids in the freshman-class that are playing that well. We wanted to get them in more than we did but the opportunity didn’t arise. You will see them probably play a lot more in the next couple of games. So there are probably half a dozen to seven freshmen that are all playing great right now.

In your mind, what is one of the bright spots you have come across with this team thus far in the season?

The one thing I really love about this team is that every day, they come to train and come to get better. They really work at it. They are a fun group.