Engulfed by a throng of children, each armed with a pen and a
UCLA team poster, Bristyn Davis stood on a patch of grass at Drake
Stadium earlier this month, an easy-going smile plastered across
her face.
“Did you score a goal today?” one of the young
autograph seekers asked.
Davis laughed and shook her head no.
Being held scoreless might have irked the ultra-competitive
sophomore forward last season, but it doesn’t bother her as
much anymore. Having been cut from the U.S. Under-19 National Team
this summer because the coaching staff felt that she was too
one-dimensional, Davis is on a mission this season to prove that
she is more than just a goal scorer.
“Yes, I love to put the ball in the net, but it’s
learning to do the things that people say I can’t that means
the most to me right now,” Davis said. “I’m
trying to be the player that has a lot of assists and a lot of
goals. I don’t want to be just a goal scorer anymore. I want
to be a well-rounded player.”
A Parade All-American at St. Anthony’s High School in
Locust Valley, N.Y., the 5-foot-4 Davis first burst onto the
national scene because of her lethal shot and ability to finish in
front of the net. She tallied 32 goals her senior year and scored
four or more in a game several times while playing for her club
team, the HBC Fury.
Scoring goals came so easily to Davis, whose brother Chadd
played soccer at UCLA from 1999 to 2002, that it often masked the
Newport Beach native’s deficiencies in other facets of the
game. Although she spent 15 to 20 minutes per day shooting after
practice in high school, she rarely carved out time to work on the
passing, one-touch or 1-on-1 skills that might have helped her
become a more complete player at an early age.
“Her technique certainly wasn’t her biggest
asset,” Davis’ club coach Paul Riley said. “She
wasn’t a great player, but she was a pure goal scorer.
Sometimes she just lashed at the ball, and it would go
in.”
Camouflaged by her productivity in high school and even at times
during her freshman season at UCLA, the imperfections in her game
revealed themselves as she sought to earn a spot on the U.S. roster
for next month’s U-19 World Championships in Thailand.
Matched up against some of the best young players in the world this
summer, Davis tried to compensate for her weaknesses, but even her
greatest strength failed her. So focused was Davis on improving her
control and her first touch that she stopped playing aggressively,
stopped scoring goals, and never made much of an impact in front of
the net.
“I was so caught up in trying to make the perfect pass and
receive the perfect ball that I didn’t do what I was good
at,” Davis said. “Instead of scoring and playing like I
always play, I became a head case.”
Cut from the U-19 team by U.S. coach Mark Krikorian in July,
Davis returned to Los Angeles and immediately began preparing for
her sophomore season. She met with UCLA coach Jill Ellis and laid
out a set of goals for herself in the coming months.
“I told Jill if that’s what they were going to say
about my ability to receive the ball then I’m going to get
that much better at it and make it one of my specialties,”
Davis said. “It was really a wake-up call for me.”
Ellis said it was clear from the outset that not making the U-19
team lit a fire under Davis.
“I think she has something to prove,” Ellis said.
“She thinks she belongs there. I’m sad for her that she
didn’t make it, but at the same time she’s come back
fired up, hungry and motivated.”
The new philosophy has been effective for Davis, maybe
UCLA’s most potent offensive weapon so far this season. The
sophomore is second on the team in goals with seven and has
registered a team-high five assists, two more than she had all of
last season.
More importantly to Davis, she is making great strides with her
ability to control the ball.
“Now when a ball comes at me, I actually bring it down
easily,” Davis said. “It’s exciting for me to see
that improvement.”
That’s not the only area in which Davis has gotten better.
She was in better shape at the beginning of the season because of
the time she spent with the U-19 team over the summer, and her leg
strength has also improved. Now Ellis believes that Davis can
confidently strike a ball from 25 yards out.
Although she admits it will be hard not to be in Thailand next
month once the World Championships begin, Davis believes it may be
a blessing in the long run.
“If I was there. I’d still be tied up in
knots,” she said. “At UCLA, I can be myself. I can
continue to work towards becoming the all-around player that I know
I can be.”