Susan Harman

Your Prep Sports

IOWA CITY – What kind of guy is Dave Rosenthal? He’s the kind of guy who remembers the name of your dog and asks about his health when he hasn’t seen you for ages.

But on Tuesday night Rosenthal, the West High girls soccer coach, was feted not for being a classy human being but for being the National Federation of High Schools girls soccer coach of the year.

Rosenthal learned of the honor a few months ago, but Jason Eslinger, Assistant Director of the Iowa Girls High School Athletic Union, presented him with the plaque between games of a doubleheader against Cedar Rapids Kennedy.

Rosenthal’s record is 335-112 with two state titles and four runner-up finishes. West High has been to 10 consecutive state tournaments and 16 overall.

“Number one, it says you’re old, you’ve been around for a long time,” Rosenthal said of the honor. “But the second thing is, I might just be the figurehead. Maybe I had a little something to do with it, but you think about the number of hours these kids put into it and the number of hours that coaches in the clubs put into developing them. I get those kids for three months out of a 12-month year. The other time they’re playing club or they’re playing other sports. I’m just like the tip of the iceberg, really.”

You might buy that – it’s certainly true that the strong soccer clubs in town have benefitted all Iowa City high schools – but that ignores Rosenthal’s strong suit.

Before he ever had all-star talent like Regan Steigleder and Emma Cooper, mainstays on West’s second championship team, he was best known as the coach whose team would year after year show the most improvement from the beginning to the end of the season.

He’s done it with all kinds of teams and vastly different levels of talent.

As it happens, this will be a season where Rosenthal will need all his considerable coaching ability.

West is very young and has very little depth. Those are the primary reasons the Women of Troy have lost their first five games of the season, including a 4-1 loss to Kennedy Tuesday.

“It’s a really young team,” Rosenthal said. “We’re not used to having no depth. We don’t have a strong group of club players. We have strong club players, don’t get me wrong, but we just don’t have the numbers to challenge ourselves in practice at a high level.

“We started at a much lower point than we typically start.”

West has played a daunting schedule, losing to Linn-Mar, Dubuque Hempstead, defending state champ Ames and Bettendorf before Kennedy (1-1). All of those teams except Hempstead are ranked in the top 10 in Class 3A.

Kennedy, just as an example, had players who were bigger, stronger, faster, more skilled and more experienced in their roles.

“We have played some incredible competition,” Rosenthal said. “It’s just a lot. There’s a lot for us to deal with. We need to learn a lot about ourselves.”

But there were bright spots Tuesday including the team’s first goal of the season, a 25-yard blast by senior Rachel Olson.

“It’s been hard considering we lost two of the best players in the nation,” Olson said. “We lost a lot of confidence, but I think we needed that spark, like getting one goal built our confidence.

“I love those distance shots.”

Kennedy’s goals were scored by Jennifer Schmidt, Kenadee Dekko, Grace Walker and Olivia Hellweg.

Olson said she thought the younger players were beginning to figure out their roles and the formations.

“With time I think we’re going to be a really strong team,” she said.

West High meets City High Friday in the annual girl-boy doubleheader at the University of Iowa field.