UTEP Soccer team prepares for upcoming season with heavy hearts

It’s been a season of change for the UTEP soccer team.

The Miners have a new head coach, and they’re preparing for a season following a deadly mass shooting that rocked the El Paso community to its core.

UTEP head coach Kathryn Balogun is new to El Paso, and she takes over a team that went 7-8-4 a season ago.

Balogun was hired in December 2018, and she comes to UTEP from Texas Southern University where she was the head coach for the TSU soccer team for five seasons.

She says for her, the key to success on the field is on defense.

“We believe defense wins championships, so we’ll be defensively organized,” Balogun said. “I think it’s super important to the longevity and the heights that we want to go to, so that’s something that we look to be known for.”

News of the mass shooting at the El Paso Walmart changed Balogun’s role from soccer coach, to also counselor, as five players on her team are from El Paso.

“We definitely reached out to them to make sure they were ok,” Balogun said. “When things like this happen you’re like, ‘oh, it’s not safe anymore’ and we’ve had those conversations with our players. Yes, this happened, but that shouldn’t scare us from being part of the community and still being who we were before.”

One of those El Pasoans is senior midfielder Danielle Carreon.

Carreon graduated from Andress High School and started playing soccer when she was 9 years old.

She says she took the news of the shooting very personal, especially when she learned that a youth soccer team had been outside the Walmart fundraising for a soccer trip at the time of the shooting.

“It’s really hard. I try not to let it dwell on me that much, but the whole thing overall really did hurt,” Carreon said.

Carreon says she loves the way the city has banded together following the August 3rd shooting.

“I’ve never seen support like this,” Carreon said. “I already have an El Paso Strong shirt, and iI just really think that this movement is really good, and I just think as a team the best we can do is give back to the community.”

UTEP has started an El Paso Strong campaign and plans to honor the victims of the shooting, and also raise money for them throughout the season.

That campaign starts with the UTEP soccer team’s home opener against Wyoming on August 22nd.