CALEDONIA — Briann Benson plays with a sense of calm when she is on the soccer field.
The noise from the crowd doesn’t matter. Benson can tune it out.
Disruptive play from a defender or an opposing team? That’s fine, too, because the Caledonia High School senior midfielder has refined her touch on the ball to escape the most perilous situations.
But Benson didn’t always play with the poise of a veteran. In fact, she admits there was a time earlier in her high school career when she wondered if she was good enough to go on to play soccer in college.
Those concerns seemed a distant memory Tuesday morning when Benson held a signing ceremony in the Caledonia High library to announce her decision to sign a scholarship to play soccer at Meridian Community College.
“It took a lot of practice,” Benson said when asked how she has developed her presence on the ball. She said she attended three camps over the summer and practiced hard in the offseason in an effort to hone her skills to get an opportunity to play in college. “When I was younger, I didn’t think I was ever going to be able to be this good.”
Caledonia High coach Jason Forrester knew early on Benson was going to realize an opportunity to play soccer after high school. The only thing he didn’t know was which position Benson was going to make her own.
Forrester watched Benson play as a defender her freshman year. He said she hit a growth spurt, too, that helped give her size and strength to compete on the back line and then move into the center of the field.
Forrester said Benson’s ball control as blossomed as she has matured.
“She always has had a good shot,” Forrester said. “She has a strong leg and can take free kicks from anywhere on the field and put them on the frame, but her ball control has gotten so good. She sees the field real well. The ball control has helped her to see the field as well as she does because she is not always having to look down at the ball. She is surveying the field and then all of a sudden she knows where it has to go and boom, it is right there. She does a real good job.”
Forrester said Benson’s aggressiveness and size made her a natural fit as a defender. He said Benson’s technical improvements enabled him to move her to the midfield for some playing time. This season, he said she is controlling the midfield for Caledonia, which is 3-4 following a 2-0 loss to New Hope on Monday. Benson had three goals and two assists (eight points).
“You will see a lot of teams that have a central midfielder who is everywhere and all over the place,” Forrester said. “That is not her style. The formation we play we don’t have a defensive or an offensive midfielder. The way she is calm is she sees the field and where somebody is going to run in and attack, she is going to let them make that mistake and she is going to capitalize off that mistake. That is the maturity.”
Forrester said Benson does a solid job of leading the team by playing in a “controlled” manner. He said she had a knack for keeping the ball off the goalkeeper and for clearing the ball when she played defender. As Benson has matured, Forrester said she has learned to be even better by passing a clearance to a teammate to help the Lady Confederates keep possession and maintain their composure.
Forrester laughs asked about the source of Benson’s calmness. He said he would have to calm her down sometimes when she played defender because she was too aggressive.
These days, though, Benson feels more comfortable as a leader. She said she is able to stay laid back because she is more confident and realizes how much she has grown as a player.
Benson said she felt in 10th grade she had a chance to keep playing soccer. She said she always tried to take constructive criticism of coaches and apply it to her game. She feels confident she will be able to play defender or midfielder at the next level.
“I think maturing over the years has helped me keep my cool and throw it over my shoulder easier,” Benson said. “I was awkward when I played when I was younger (because she was growing into her body), but now I am more natural to it.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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