Many people played more soccer games last week than Alabama's Chatham DeProspo did. A few of them even scored more goals than the Crimson Tide's junior midfielder had.
No one was as brilliantly efficient as espnW's national player of the week.
DeProspo took three shots in the only game Alabama played a week ago, a 5-1 win at Tennessee to begin SEC play, but all three found the back of the net from beyond 20 yards.
A season ago, Alabama scored just four goals on the road against SEC opponents. DeProspo nearly matched that on her own before the game in Knoxville even reached halftime.
The first goal suffers only in comparison to those that followed. Tennessee appeared to have escaped early danger when it cleared an Alabama cross into a crowded 18-yard box in the ninth minute of a scoreless game. But standing alone about 20 yards from the goal and in line with the left post, DeProspo settled the clearance with one touch and hit a left-footed volley that sliced past the diving goalkeeper into the net on the opposite side of the goal.
She was just getting warmed up.
As the 30th minute arrived, Tennessee again scrambled against pressure. One of its defenders intercepted a ball rolling across the top of the 18-yard box and deflected it back toward midfield. Behind the play and again all alone, DeProspo took about a five-step run-up and a full swing at the still rolling ball. No goalkeeper in the world would have stopped the resulting shot, a line drive from 25 yards that smacked into the top right corner of the net for a 2-0 lead.
When Alabama's Abbie Boswell earned a free kick five minutes later, this time on the right side as the Crimson Tide faced the goal, there could have been little doubt who would stand over it. From a little more than 20 yards and facing a four-player wall, DeProspo stuck the ball into the same right corner she found with her first two goals. The keeper took one sliding step in the wrong direction as DeProspo hit the ball and could then only stand and watch the result
Any one of the efforts could have been the goal of the season for most players -- all the more for a player who began the season with three total career goals (DeProspo played her freshman season at Louisville). She collected them in less than half an hour.
It isn't easy for a program that was treading water to develop the soccer equivalent of Simone Manuel's stroke. Alabama isn't there yet in its second season under Wes Hart. And there will be growing pains, like a 1-0 loss at Samford on Tuesday night. Still, that game, which fell outside the scope of this award, marked just the second time this season the Crimson Tide went without a goal -- perhaps not coincidentally, the only games in which DeProspo didn't record a shot.
After the brava hat trick, Hart talked about the belief and the confidence he sees in the players. Coaches will say that. The more convincing proof is that Alabama has already scored more goals than it did all of last season. The proof is that when the ball fell to DeProspo, she didn't hesitate to do something with it. Again and again and again.
