Estancia changes begin at the top

Chris Yemma

Things are coming full circle in the Estancia High girls soccer

program.

From the win column, to the coaching staff, to the players --

things are turning around.

And for the new coaching staff, what goes around, comes around.

First-year Coach Natalie Rainey, her assistant Christine Dahle and

her goalie coach, Beth Bayerd, are all revisiting Estancia. All three

donned Eagles’ soccer jerseys back in the mid-1990s and graduated

from the school in 1996.

Now they are back to turn around an ailing program that only had

two wins last season and finished last in the Golden West League.

They are also back to provide a sense of continuity. The program has

shuffled through a plethora of coaches in the last 10 years, and the

players are looking for someone to latch on to.

The new coaching trio is not the ambiguously, maybe here to stay

one year, trio. It is the future of the girls soccer program.

“Since we graduated, the girls have gone through so many coaches,”

Rainey said. “There hasn’t been any stability and they haven’t had a

coach to trust.”

Now, there’s three. Enter Rainey, Dahle and Bayerd.

“I think [the players] think it’s cool that the three of us played

together and grew up together,” Rainey said. “They’re always asking

us questions and asking for stories.”

And it all appears to be working. The players are building a sense

of trust as they settle into a new program that isn’t shy on

discipline and is big on support.

With a 4-1-2 start, the team doubled its victory total of last

season, with almost an identical team. Four starting seniors

returned, along with a couple of other younger players. But, somehow,

someway, things have turned around. But how?

“Everyone keeps asking me that and I don’t know,” Rainey said.

“It’s hard to say because it’s primarily the same group of girls.”

The answer would appear to be obvious -- a new coaching staff. But

Rainey takes the humble approach.

“It’s probably that last year was such a disappointment to them

and they wanted to turn it around,” she said.

After Estancia, Rainey went on to play soccer for Orange Coast

College. After two years as a Pirate, she called it quits.

Dahle played for Cal State Dominguez Hills and Bayerd did not play

after high school.

What the three bring to the program is something that a single

person cannot provide. What they also bring is something the players

might not be used to.

“In years past, the girls haven’t had much structure,” Rainey

said. “I never dared question a coach,” she said. “But they’re

getting better. In the beginning, they didn’t know if they could

trust me because I was new and there’s been so many coaches in the

past.”

But now, things are starting to gel.