After graduating from Bishop Brady in 2018, Danielle Desruisseaux took a detour through New Haven, Conn., before finding her way to Southern New Hampshire University and the Penmen’s women’s soccer team. Cara Easter, on the other hand, took the direct route from Weare to SNHU after she graduated from John Stark in 2018. Either way, both of them feel like they’re playing at home, which is exactly where they want to be.
“I’m a homebody, so I wanted to be close to home,” Easter said.
“I did not want to stay in New Hampshire for college, I needed to go away,” Desruisseaux said. “But then after I left New Hampshire, I was like, ‘Okay, I want to come home.’ ”
Desruisseaux transferred to Southern New Hampshire after one semester at the University of New Haven, and the Penmen are glad she decided to make the move. SNHU went 14-4-3 last year, finished second in the Northeast-10 conference and went to the NCAA Division II Tournament for a second straight year. The Penmen lost three of their top five scorers to graduation, but Desruisseaux, a forward, can replace some of that offense.
“Her transferring in for this season is perfect and it kept us from having to recruit someone else in that position to fill those gaps,” SNHU coach Elie Monteiro said. “What Danni brings to the table as far as skills on the field are things that we need – her quickness, her athleticism, her eye for the goal, her left foot. So, she’s hungry to get on the end of things and go to goal and she’s going to have a role to play for us, for sure.”
Monteiro also sees an expanded role for Easter, a defensive midfielder. As a senior at Stark, Easter was the Monitor Girls’ Soccer Player of the Season, First Team Division II, All-New England and picked to play in the High School All-American game. She saw time in 13 games as a freshman at SNHU, but she didn’t get a start and she didn’t play as many minutes as she was wanted. That should change this fall.
“When Cara came in as a freshman, she added a level of technical ability, a level of composure, good soccer IQ, but it took her a little bit to find her feet and get used to the speed of play and the physicality of the league,” Monteiro said. “But I thought she worked really, really hard in the spring to raise that side of her game. She hardly came off the field in our spring scrimmages, and really she was the player that we felt was the most improved in the spring. And she is showing her class and her ability this fall so far.”
Easter was a starter in SNHU’s first preseason scrimmage on Friday at Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., but she had to leave the game when a muscle strain began acting up. She expects the leg to be fine shortly, and Monteiro expects that leg, and both of Easter’s feet, to be in the middle of things for the Penmen this fall.
“After a year with us I think she really understands what we’re trying to get out of her and her teammates,” Montiero said. “Because we’re a possession-oriented team, she fits right into the way we want to play. She has a good feel for the game, she reads the game really, really well, she understands the tempo of the game, understands the little nuances, and she’s got two great feet. She’s a player that fits right into our system and our style of play and our philosophy.
“And, goodness, not to mention she’s an awesome, awesome person. So, she really fits right into the whole thing we’re trying to build here at Southern New Hampshire.”
Desruisseaux was well aware of what Monteiro was building at SNHU while she was playing at Bishop Brady. She was recruited by the Penmen and her coach at Brady, Andrew Mattarazzo, played at Southern New Hampshire.
“(Mattarazzo) really prepared me for the level of play in college,” Desruisseaux said. “He was constantly calling me over and always pushing me and helping me to form good habits.”
Despite the prep, Desruisseaux never felt quite right at New Haven, which also plays in the NE-10. She said that within a week she had a feeling the soccer program wasn’t the right fit for her, and after going through a 2-13-2 freshman season, she knew it wasn’t the right fit.
“It would have been a different story if we were losing every game and we were having this great time together and just loving every second of playing, but unfortunately that wasn’t what happened,” Desruisseaux said. “We were losing every game and just having a miserable time. People weren’t friends with each other, there was no camaraderie, no connection. It wasn’t poor soccer, it was poor team unity.”
Things have been different at SNHU for Desruisseaux. She began forming bonds with her new teammates during the spring, and over the offseason Montiero assigned everyone a book that emphasized, “positivity and energy and drive, because without that fight there’s no chance of winning, no matter how good you are, and that was so different,” Desruisseaux said.
Now that fall practices have begun, she’s seeing even more differences in the two programs.
“One of the biggest things is nobody is just going through the motions in practices,” Desruisseaux said. “Every college team has the ability to be great, every team has talent, but it’s the mentality that makes the difference, the drive. And I feel like we compete and beat on each other so much in practice in a way that will help everyone get better. Don’t get me wrong, we also have a lot of fun, but we also know how to push each other.”
All that pushing has the Penmen headed in the right direction after the first week of camp.
“I feel like we’re getting better every day,” said Monteiro, whose team was picked to finish second in the NE-10 Preseason Coaches’ Poll behind defending conference champ Franklin Pierce. “We have nine incoming freshmen, so 10 new players including Danni, and they’re understanding of what we want is getting better, the fitness levels are getting better, and we have another week before our next scrimmage and a week after that before our first game (Sept. 6 vs. Mercy), so we’re in good shape. We’re pleased with where we are so far and hopefully the kids keep improving.”
(Tim O’Sullivan can be reached at 369-3341 or tosullivan@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @timosullivan20)