Agredano looks to help Pitt to first winning season

Netta Agredano doesn’t expect many Pitt students will be seeing the Panthers women’s soccer… Netta Agredano doesn’t expect many Pitt students will be seeing the Panthers women’s soccer team play this season. It isn’t that she doesn’t want to see you and your friends at the games, though.

“It’d be great to have Pitt students there to support us,” Agredano said. “We have to produce, too, to show them that there is a market.”

Agredano, a forward, has played through three losing seasons for the Pitt women’s soccer team, but she’s ready for a fresh start. Entering her final year of NCAA eligibility, Agredano hopes to regain the on-field form responsible for putting her at the top of the Panthers scoring list in her first two seasons.

With a new coaching staff in place, she’s looking to be an important player in the Panthers’ turnaround.

“She is re-energized and ready to make the best of her last year here,” new head coach Sue-Moy Chin said. “A couple years ago, she was up as one of the leading goal scorers [for the Panthers]. We talked about getting back to that form.”

Agredano came to Pitt on an athletic scholarship because she wanted to compete against the tough competition the Panthers face in the Big East. She was a three-time first-team All-City forward at Tuscon High Magnet in Tuscon, Ariz.

She gained experience and exposure playing for the Arizona state Olympic Development Program team, and was selected to be in the ODP Region IV talent pool when she was 15.

In high school, Agredano experienced success in two other varsity sports. Her senior year, she was on the softball team, which went to the state playoffs, and she qualified for the state meet in track despite the fact that she ran mostly to keep in shape for soccer.

After redshirting her freshman year, Agredano missed the first four games of the 2000 season with a pulled quadriceps. She took the field for the first time as a substitute in a game against the University of Arizona, 15 minutes from her house, and ended the game with a goal in overtime. She went on to start the next 15 games for the Panthers, scoring 13 points.

Her best statistical season at Pitt was her sophomore year in 2001, when she tallied 19 points and led the Panthers in scoring. That figure included nine goals, which is the second-most in school history. She also scored three game-winning goals.

Then Agredano’s scoring dropped off in her junior season. She appeared in 16 of 19 games during the 2002 season while the Panthers swooned through a 12-game losing streak on the way to a 4-15 record. She said she didn’t quite know what went wrong for her and the team.

“Out of all the years I’ve been here,” she said, “we’ve done good things: improved in wins, beat a ranked team (Miami two years ago). We accomplished great things. Last year was just bad, bad times.”

The 2002 season was the final one of Roland Sturk’s tenure as head coach of the women’s soccer team. Pitt interim athletics director Marc Boehm chose Chin, a former college goalie at Florida International, to replace him.

Sturk was the original head coach when the program began in 1996, and was 51 games under .500 (36-87-6) in seven seasons.

“We’re pretty lucky to have them,” Agredano said of Chin and top assistant Monica Gerardo. “The team’s excited. It’s good to have the change.”Agredano and Chin have spoken several times since Chin’s hiring.

Chin wants leadership from Agredano and the other veterans on the team, and is looking for overall effort from her players.

“I expect them to compete – in training, in the weight room, in games,” Chin said. “Play to win and compete, and good things will happen for this team. I’m looking for effort first.”

Agredano has stayed in shape this summer playing in a competitive semi-pro league with teams throughout the Southwest. Her team, the Venoran Thunder, has gone up against teams in California, Colorado and Utah. With three practices and a game every week since early May, she shouldn’t be showing signs of rust when the Panthers soccer season begins.

Playing in the league meant Agredano could spend the summer at home in Tuscon with her family. Agredano is the youngest of Joseph and Peggy Agredano’s six children. However, she stopped being the baby of the family awhile back – she is now an aunt to 13 nieces and nephews.

As she moves forward, Agredano’s parents are her strongest inspiration.For the past 27 years, Joseph has run a non-profit boxing gym in inner city Tuscon, she said. Peggy is a computer teacher in an elementary school.

“They encouraged me and supported me through everything I’ve done,” she said

When in Pittsburgh, Netta lives with former teammate Cande Ruiz and Ruiz’s husband and two children. She likes to hang out with them and other friends to unwind.

Agredano decided to major in social work during her sophomore year, after taking some interesting classes in the subject. Like her father, Agredano wants to contribute to lives in the inner city.

She said she couldn’t single out particular classes or teachers in the social work department.”They’re all great teachers,” she said.

Agredano has a clear favorite outside her department, though. She loved being taught by the late Michael Jimenez. She enrolled in his Modern Latin America class, taking the advice of a teammate who recommended it.Whatever happens on the field, Agredano plans to continue taking advantage of the opportunities that have come with her talent in soccer. After graduating from Pitt in April, she is beginning her first year in Pitt’s Graduate School of Social Work this fall.

Plans could change if the Women’s United Soccer Association calls. Agredano won’t easily let go of soccer, a fixture in her life for the last 14 years. She said she would “definitely take that chance” if the opportunity to play soccer professionally came along.

“I always wanted to play at the highest level. Now it includes the professional league,” Agredano said.

And what if this season proves to be a sort of swan song for Agredano’s soccer playing days?

“It’s going to be hard to be done with soccer,” she said. “I’m glad I made it so far.”