It’s not easy being Emily Zaler right now.
The Oregon women’s soccer team’s freshman backup goalkeeper was pressed into action recently after second-year starter Jessie Chatfield broke a bone in her right hand toward the end of the Ducks’ Sept. 8 victory over New Hampshire.
“I thought I wouldn’t be playing at all this whole year,” Zaler said. “Well not unless something like this happened. But I mean, what were the chances of that, right?”
Since her unexpected call to duty, Zaler has started five games for the Ducks (5-4 overall) and has made 15 saves. Almost half of those saves came in Oregon’s Sept. 17 game against Eastern Washington.
Zaler distinguished herself in Oregon’s 1-0 win against the Eagles, making seven saves and proving that she could compete at the collegiate level.
She earned Pacific-10 Conference Player of the Week honors for her efforts, and the Ducks have won four out of five games with Zaler in goal this season.
“You always want two good goalkeepers so that they can push each other to get better in practice and I think Emily’s definitely come in and helped do that,” Oregon Associate Head coach Mike Smith said. “In the Gonzaga game (Sept. 15), a vitally important game for us, she made one match-winning save from point blank range and thoroughly impressed us with that.
“That save came about twenty minutes before our game-winning goal. It really solidified our position and kept us in it. And Emily’s done that for us in every game that she’s played.”
But Chatfield, one of the Ducks’ captains, has made a speedy recovery, so Zaler goes into this weekend not knowing when she might get her next start.
Chatfield started practicing with the team again last week, and as of Wednesday, she had shed her original hard cast for a slightly smaller version that might allow her to squeeze her hand back into her goalkeeper’s glove and play.
The Ducks say that Chatfield will be a game-time decision for their matches against Portland State today and Portland on Sunday.
That leaves Zaler, a Scottsdale, Ariz. native, in limbo: As solid as she’s been for the Ducks in Chatfield’s absence, this weekend’s matches could be the last couple of games that she’ll start for a while.
Making Zaler’s predicament a little more bittersweet is that Chatfield will likely return to action right before the Ducks travel to Arizona next weekend to play the Arizona schools.
“It’s good that Jessie’s coming back. I mean I’m glad for her and for us, but the only part that kinda sucks is that we’re going to my hometown next weekend and it would have been really fun to play at home in front of all my friends and stuff,” Zaler said.
Despite that, Zaler is mostly just grateful that she got her chance to show everyone what she can do.
“But I’m glad I got the opportunity to play five games. And if this weekend is my last weekend starting for a while, I just want to have another good game and make the most of the opportunity that I’ve been given,” Zaler said. “I think at first the coaches were really worried when Jessie got hurt because she played every game last year. But I think I’ve shown them a lot about my ability.”
The Ducks know how lucky they are to have scored a pair of talented goalkeepers two years in a row.
Zaler committed to Oregon at the end of her junior year in high school, a standard practice in soccer. Most college coaches start watching prospective recruits during their freshman and sophomore years in high school.
She was part of the first recruiting class brought in by second-year head coach Tara Erickson, who inherited the program from Bill Steffen in 2004.
“When I committed to Oregon, it was my junior year,” Zaler said. “And (Erickson and Smith) weren’t the ones who had recruited Jessie. The old coaches did. So (Erickson and Smith) hadn’t seen her play yet.
“They’d watched me play and stuff and they said that I could compete for the starting job with the new girl. At the time they didn’t know anything about her.”
But then Chatfield surprised everyone in her breakthrough season last year. The local product from Churchill High School started all 19 games and set school records for shutouts in a season (seven), consecutive shutouts (three), and consecutive shutout minutes (355:47).
The Ducks finished the season with nine wins, nine losses and a tie, and with Chatfield firmly entrenched as Oregon’s starting goalkeeper.
“If I had known going in that there would be someone I would have to compete with for the starting job for the first three years, it might have affected my decision, I don’t know.” Zaler said. “But you never know what can happen. I’m just really, really glad I got my chance to play.”
Before she committed to Oregon, Zaler went on recruiting visits to Washington State, Washington, Portland, Oregon State and Arizona State. But she said she finally decided on Oregon because she liked the idea of being a part of a young program and helping that program grow.
“I like that it’s a newer program and that it’s still developing, and so I can make an impact and help it grow.” Zaler said. “With a program like Portland where they’re already national champions, you can’t make that much of an impact.”
Overall, Zaler says she doesn’t regret her decision to come to Oregon even though the worst-case scenario for her at the moment indicates that she might remain as Chatfield’s backup for three years before she reclaims the starting job.
However, transferring to another school in search of more playing time hasn’t even crossed Zaler’s mind.
“A lot of freshman goalkeepers don’t play anyway, so every other school is gonna have an older goalkeeper,” Zaler said. “The only difference is that the age gap between the two might be more than a year.
“But I wasn’t considering it. I like it here. I like the program and the team.”
Still, the Oregon coaches are open to the idea of having their two goalkeepers split time evenly in future.
“They’ve both proved themselves to be competent in the starting spot,” Smith said. “At my former school Santa Clara, we split time with goalkeepers. So that’s always an option, and that way you as a coach can pick and choose games to give each of them playing time to keep both of them invested in the program.”
Smith thinks Chatfield has a slight edge over Zaler at the moment, but he says the gap between the two could narrow if Zaler puts in the right kind of work during the off-season.
“Right now, Jessie has a better kicking game – she can kick the ball farther,” Smith said. “She’s also a little more explosive and has a longer reach diving for balls.
Emily has to get stronger in the legs, and work with weights a little more, and that’s something we’ve already talked about getting her to do in the off-season.”
Both Chatfield and Smith also think Zaler has to be more vocal with her defenders.
“The hardest thing about starting as a freshman – especially in goal – is being confident in what you do. As a goalie, your role is to lead the defense,” Chatfield said. “And for me last year, playing with Katie Abrahamson, who was a senior leader, that was kind of intimidating because she’s so vocal.”
“Zaler probably has a similar situation now – Dylann Tharp, a junior defender, is really vocal. So Zaler just has to take the lead and be more vocal. A lot of it is about being confident in yourself even if you’re playing with people with two or three years more experience than you,” Chatfield said.
The Ducks head to Portland today. And Zaler’s hoping that before she relinquishes the starting job to Chatfield, she might get one more chance to run out onto the field, get between her goal posts, and jump up and touch the crossbar. That’s a pre-game ritual she performs right before the start of every half – but only in games she starts.
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