Lady Vol soccer ready for fresh start

Brian Pensky, new UT women's soccer coach

Brian Pensky covered a lot of strategic ground Wednesday, discussing his philosophy prior to Tennessee's opening soccer practice of a new season and a new era.

Maybe this serves as a bottom line:

"You've got to score goals,'' said Pensky, who left Maryland to take over the Lady Vols in January.

"People believe defense wins championships. No disrespect to our goalkeepers or our defenders, but I want to score goals.''

Tennessee returns a veteran lineup, but one minus two seniors, Emily Dowd and Chelsea Hatcher, who scored a lot of goals the past few years.

Caroline Brown (11 goals last fall) is a proven commodity. Pensky has a little more than two weeks before the Aug. 17 opener against Samford to figure out where the other goals are coming from.

For the first time since 1999, someone other than Angela Kelly is running the show at Tennessee. She left for that other UT, Texas, and new athletic director Dave Hart lured Pensky away from a successful Maryland program.

"Brian is a breath of fresh air,'' said senior forward Alexis Owens. "It's a fresh start, a new beginning, a whole new style that works for us and is what we needed.

"We have the talent. We just needed a coach who knew how to coach us, I guess.''

Pensky figures Owens' fresh start includes putting balls in the back of the net. Owens notched four goals last year coming off the bench. She was potent in several spring exhibition games.

Pensky likes the idea of Owens and sophomore Iyana Moore putting pressure on opposing nets.

"I don't know that there's going to be a tandem as fast as those two,'' he said.

Incoming freshman Hannah Wilkinson had a solid excuse for missing the opening practice. She's playing for New Zealand in the Olympics and will face Team USA on Friday.

After London, Wilkinson still has the Under 20 World Cup in Japan before she gets to campus in September.

"Hannah's going to be fatigued,'' Pensky said. "We're excited for Hannah to come, but to be honest, for right now, she's the furthest thing from our radar.

"We've got a group right here we feel can win.''

That group has eight returning starters, including keeper Julie Eckel. Eckel is about the only one Pensky rules out in the quest to produce goals.

"I hope we're not one or two kids scoring goals,'' he said. "If it's by committee, it's by committee.

"But we've got to find out who can score goals.''

Follow Mike Strange at http://twitter.com/strangemike44 and http://blogs.knoxnews.com/strange.