MARIETTA, Ohio — Our All-Decade Teams were assembled from interviews with former players, coaches and review of team records including All-Conference, All-Ohio and All-Region winners. We put players in the decade where they played the majority of their career or in cases where they played equal amount of seasons in each, where they had the most success in. Grad years on players that didn't complete their time at MC were what the expected grad year was meant to be. We tried to remain true to the positions played, but some may have been moved from one side to the other. Please understand that records are spotty, particularly in the early days and your memory may very well be correct.
For the third time in a row the dawn of the decade saw a new coach in charge of the soccer program. The school's then new Athletic Director Debbie Lazorik tasked Pete Curtis with leading the Pioneers into the new decade. Hired after a stint of coaching Iowa State's Club program, the Liverpool England native set out first to stabilize and then expand the program with a new emphasis on recruiting.
Curtis also put in place the move of its games from the off campus Pioneer Park to back on campus at Marietta Field. This process took a few seasons but by the middle of the decade all games were back on campus. The long term vision of what has become Marietta Field was started by Curtis and some key alumni supporters during his tenure at Marietta.
It took a couple of recruiting cycles but by the time Curtis moved on to coach at the University of Charleston after five years at Marietta the program was on the cusp of making waves in the Ohio Athletic Conference (OAC).
Those waves came to fruition under Coach of the Decade Chris Przemieniecki. Chris joined Marietta from Marycrest International University (IA) and continued Curtis' work and by his second year in 1996 the team was back above .500 for the first time in 12 years when the team finished 10-7-3. In 1997 the team continued its upward trend with an 11-8-2 record and qualified for the OAC Tournament for the first time in the history of the tournament finishing third in conference with a 5-3-1 record. The season ended with a 1-0 tournament road loss to John Carroll. After the 1997 season Przemieniecki moved on to the assistant's role at Bowling Green and finished his tenure at Marietta with the second highest winning percentage, .517, in the history of Marietta soccer coaches.
Lazorik continued the emphasis on coaching experience when she hired Patrick Holguin as the 10th coach in the program's history. Holguin came to Marietta after five years as the head coach of the club program at the University of Houston and began his 12-year run as the men's coach with an 8-8-3 record in 1998. Holguin began to put his mark on the program and set the program up for the next decade, which included some new highs on and off the field.
