USL Feature
Saturday, May 7, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
The Portland Timbers U23 side accomplished something that had never been done before in the 2010 USL Premier Development League season as it finished with a perfect 20-0 record, claiming the league championship with a 4-1 victory against the Thunder Bay Chill.
But according to Coach Jim Rilatt, he hasn’t really thought about the team’s success in the lead-up to the new season, which begins for the Timbers today against the Victoria Highlanders at Jeld-Wen Field at 1 p.m. PST.
“The purpose for us is, and will always be, trying to promote our players to the next level,” Rilatt said by phone this week. “So what happens with the team and any accomplishments is obviously fantastic, but it rests with that team. Last year’s team is a sole entity of its own, it did a great job, hugely successful, the players should be happy with their achievement, but that is then, this is now.”
Certainly, when it comes to the goals Rilatt has set, the Timbers have put together an excellent record of developing players to move on to the professional level. Last year’s team has seen goalkeeper Jake Gleeson and midfielder Freddie Braun graduate to the Timbers senior squad, while Graham Dugoni is now with USL PRO’s Charleston Battery, and before them Collen Warner, now with Real Salt Lake, and Logan Emory and Jared van Schaik have all turned professional.
But for those returning to the side this season, like All-PDL selection Ryan Kowaluk, the memory of what the team accomplished a season ago has been in the back of a few minds as the new season has neared.
“Actually, I’ve started thinking about it a little bit now that we’re getting going again about what we accomplished,” Kowaluk said. “It was an amazing year, it was a year that I’ll probably never forget, I made some great friends and we were all really supporting each other throughout the whole year and we pulled off something pretty special that will always be part of us and always be part of the organization.”
Now, though, the focus is for this year’s group to take the steps they needs to join the predecessors, and former teammates, in the professional ranks. With nine players returning from last year’s squad, Rilatt has expectations for what he hopes to see from his returning players as they are joined by new teammates.
“I would hope they would take the experience they gained last year, use that to make certain that the new players understand the principles that we play by in our organization and use those to increase their own individual game for their own individual benefit,” Rilatt said. “Brent Richards, Stevie Evans have the ability to be professional players. What did they learn from Jake Gleeson, from Freddie Braun, what did Bim [Ogunyemi] pick up, and how do you share that with the new players, the new faces to our organization?”
Getting the chance to do that while being in the same environment, and playing on the same field, as their senior counterparts offers players like Kowaluk all the motivation they need to continue to develop and chase their goal of turning professional.
“It’s a class organization, it’s a very professional organization, they expect the best out of us and they won’t settle for anything else,” Kowaluk said. “You never know who’s looking down on you at practices or who’s looking down on you at games and it brings out the best in all of us, it makes us all competitive because we all definitely want the chance to play at the next level, and this is a great stepping stone to get there.”
And for the club itself, it’s a perfect situation to evaluate those who could help the senior side in years to come.
“It’s produced two players that we were able to sign, so I think that in of itself has made the investment worthwhile,” Rilatt said. “It gives us the opportunity to truly know a player’s game within our system, and what are they like when they travel. It’s not fun to travel in the PDL, it’s definitely not very glamorous, how do they handle that, how do they handle the grind it takes to be a PDL player? That tells you a lot about the character of the person and how they’ll deal with being a professional.
“Everybody’s great when things are going well, everybody’s on a high, I’m playing on a regular basis, everything is great. That’s not the reality, especially for some young players who have to earn their way and we get a good look under the microscope of what they going to do when things maybe aren’t so good.”
But both Rilatt and Kowaluk certainly hope things will go as well as they did last season, with the prospect of taking a second consecutive PDL championship an appealing one for the University of Portland standout.
“You don’t win many championships in your life, and any time you can win a national championship, especially on the level that the PDL is, it would definitely be something special,” Kowaluk said. “I made a ton of friends off last year’s team just from winning, because winning brings you closer, but if I could win another one it would mean a lot to me.”