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Grella Always A Threat On Offense
11/15/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Soccer
By John Roth, Blue Devil Weekly
DURHAM, N.C. - He is hard to miss in his No. 9 Duke jersey, charging across the turf at Koskinen Stadium calling for the ball, his long blond mane a lightning rod for attention. Defenders simply must keep an eye on sophomore striker Mike Grella, because in a sport with limited scoring opportunities, he is a threat to find the back of the net almost any time he touches the ball.
As Duke entered the NCAA men's soccer tournament this week with the number one seed, Grella stood as its number one offensive force. Leading the team in nearly every offensive category except for assists, his 11 goals represented more than 25 percent of the team's total through 20 matches. Five of his goals were considered game-winners, contributing significantly to the Blue Devils' 16-3-1 record.
“He's one of the few guys on any sports team who's capable of being absolutely brilliant,” says veteran Duke coach John Rennie. “He has as high a skill level as any player we've ever had here. Like a lot of very talented players, he needs to be more consistent, but he is an extremely talented player.”
Grella's talent was on full display at the ACC Tournament last week, when his long blast of a goal in overtime enabled the Blue Devils to emerge with a 1-0 victory over Wake Forest in the championship match. Had the game remained tied through double overtime, the conference title would have been decided on a penalty kick shootout, which is what happened the previous season ? when Grella nailed the decisive PK against archrival North Carolina.
“The ACC has been friendly to me,” he says with a smile.
But Grella wanted no repeat of the shootout situation this year, even though he is supremely confident of his ability to shine in pressure situations.
“With three games in five days, there's not much thought going on other than let's win this thing and get out of here,” he says of the overtime sessions against Wake. “I'm sure a lot of people were thinking let's just get to PKs at that time. I felt we were not going to get to PKs. Wake had won their previous two games on PKs so they were more comfortable with the situation, so I didn't want to let them get to PKs.
“Before I received the ball, I had said to myself that I was going go at the defense the next time I got the ball. A space opened up in the middle because the center defensive midfielder came to pressure me. I recognized the space in the middle, so I pushed the ball there and just hit it. I just wanted to cause the defense some trouble, give whatever I had left and not let the game get to PKs.”
The shot sent Duke into the NCAA tourney as the ACC champion for a second straight year, but Grella and the rest of the Blue Devils vividly recall how much that meant last year. They were humbled in their opening contest against Creighton. A year after reaching the College Cup, they were out after one match, and none too pleased about it.
Grella says the Devils did not need to be reminded of that shortcoming as their tourney opener with Brown approached on Nov. 15, but he also pointed out that this year is a completely different situation because the team of young players has matured so much from 2005 while also benefiting from the arrival of former Duke star Mike Jeffries as Rennie's associate head coach. Jeffries, a Duke Sports Hall of Famer, was a national player of the year during his playing days and a head coach in Major League Soccer for three seasons.
“He has added a lot to the team. He's brought a lot of different exercises and training sessions to the team and he's instilled what we do being a priority, not over school but over going out, fraternity stuff, and he's made everyone feel important. We all have the same goal now,” Grella says.
“Also as far as team camaraderie, we're a lot closer than we ever were last year. We are very close. I don't think we'll let each other down like we did last year. This year I think we bring a lot to the table, especially being the number one seed. Last year I feel we didn't do as much together outside the field as a team. Some of the seniors were thinking about job opportunities and stuff like that and the priority was elsewhere. Maybe a lot of the guys were closer to their other social groups than the soccer team. But now we go out a lot together, we do everything together, and we really fight out there for each other.”
Grella came to Duke as the national high school player of the year, so he was already accustomed to intense scrutiny from opposing defenses as well as high-level matches. He started all but five matches in 2005, scored four goals and made he ACC All-Freshman team. But this year he's been much improved, with a team-best 52 shots, the 11 goals, and a spot on the All-ACC first team.
“He's a good athlete, he's got good speed, he's strong, he can hold players off,” Rennie says. “He probably needs to become a little bit better of an athlete, work harder at that part of the game. At every higher level you go to, you can't just rely on your skill, and he found that out last year, when he was very inconsistent. This year he's much more consistent and right now is playing as well as any player in the country. But he's got to maintain that consistency.
“A lot of it is just getting used to the demands of a higher level, where everybody is bigger, stronger, faster, older, and you have to be more consistent and do more things without the ball. You have to be mentally tough. He's gotten much better this year from his freshman year. It's a hard adjustment, as it is for anybody, and at this point he's made the full adjustment.”
Grella says that coaching aided the transition.
“Coming in I was supposed to be a good striker for the team, but I think a lot of my problem was that I was dropping back into the midfield,” he explains. “Coach told me to stay higher on the field, and I think I've found a lot of success doing that.
“I am going into the NCAA Tournament staying a lot higher on the field than I usually do and not dropping back so much so I can get more goals, and just play quicker every time I get the ball. If I dribble or if I decide to pass the ball, I just want to do it a lot faster and that will help our team a lot.”
It has already been a good soccer year for Grella. After accompanying the Blue Devils on a summer trip to Germany for the World Cup, he returned home to New York and got caught up in the frenzy surrounding Italy's championship victory. Both of his parents were born in Italy, and he was watching with friends and family when the Italians prevailed.
“The trip with the team was phenomenal, to be there in that atmosphere and to go to some games and to be with the guys,” he says. “I think it united us a lot more and made the team a lot stronger. As far as Italy winning, it was probably one of the best days of my life because I was brought up watching Italian soccer, and watching them lose every time in the final or semifinals. To see them win was phenomenal to me.”
Now he takes aim at his own trophy, the College Cup, to be decided Dec. 1-3 in St. Louis.
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Duke Soccer College Cup Seasons
1982 22-1-2 runnerup
1986 18-5-1 champion
1992 15-4-3 lost semis
1995 16-7-1 runnerup
2004 18-6-0 lost semis
Duke's ACC Championships
1980 regular season
1982 regular season
1997 regular season
1999 regular season & tournament
2000 regular season tie
2005 tournament
2006 regular season & tournament
Players Mentioned
F
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