Top-ranked 2A Holy Angels girls soccer keeps team healthy through new partnership
RICHFIELD, Minn. — The Holy Angels Stars are hoping to return to US Bank Stadium this week to get their third state championship.
They finished their regular season 18-1 and are ranked first going into the state tournament in class 2A.
The team gives a lot of credit to a new partnership with Edina-based athletic performance center, Human Powered Health, keeping them healthy going into the post-season.
All season long, at the start of each week, the Stars head coach Dave Marshak has each player jump on a force plate, provided by Human Powered Health.
"It's really, really easy using the data to spot when someone is fatigued or something is not quite right," said Marshak.
Data from each jump is sent directly to Evan Strewler at Human Powered Health, who says the data shows him how much for the player produces and how much they are able to absorb when they land.
With that, Strewler can advise Coach Marshak how much workload each athlete can handle that week.
"It's kind of a green, yellow, red philosophy. Green is they're all good, yellow is let's monitor them, and red is let's monitor/make some significant adjustments," said Strewler.
This tool helped senior Ella Smith recognize the power of rest and recovery.
"I will admit, earlier this year, I was a little bit injured, and didn't want to tell my coaches, and then I did the jump, and it did show that I was hurt, so I had to take a break, but that was okay because now I'm ready to go for state," said Smith.
Senior Eileen Braun says because more teammates were monitoring their health individually, they could better balance out the strength of the team as a whole.
"If they are feeling sore, the data will tell us that, and they don't play and that's fine. We can take those breaks, and they can come back and recover for the games we really need them for," said Braun.
"It's been invaluable to have this information. It's been eye-opening for these kids to learn about themselves," said Marshak.
While this team is dialed in to win a championship, this data testing hasn't been all business.
"Being together, the jumps, it's obviously a team bonding experience in its own," said Smith.
The Stars will play in the quarterfinals Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. against Byron.