New Lady Panthers soccer coach hails from quality Hebron program

Monte Pace believes in symmetry. When he ran the boys soccer program at Lewisville Hebron for the past six seasons, Pace believed in the importance of bridging both his program and the girls soccer program.

“We just really wanted to set up one soccer program, if you will,” Pace said. “We were very involved. I took a great deal of interest in the girls program. I decided that if a girls opportunity would ever open up and I was interested in it, I would want to look at it.”

That turned out to be Colleyville Heritage. The 42-year-old Pace pursued the opening left by Misail Tsapos (who left to take the girls position at Flower Mound) and was named as the head coach in June.

Pace has 17 years in the sport. At Hebron, he won 79 games and guided the program to four playoff appearances.

Region I has always proved to be the most difficult in Texas. In those playoff runs, he made two runs to the Region I quarterfinals.

Pace started in the Lewisville school district at Flower Mound, where he served as both as a football coach and assistant soccer coach. During his time at Flower Mound, he took to the sport because of the relationship he struck with then-head coach Guy Greening. He then served as a boys assistant soccer coach at Coppell before moving on to Hebron.

“I always enjoyed coaching the sport,” Pace said. “This wasn’t a thing where it was flipping a light switch to be a soccer coach. But Guy taught me a lot about the game tactically and the little things about how to run a practice and to deal with different personalities. We’re a product of our experience, and it all led to this.”

Because of the late start to this job, Pace has not had a chance to work with the players. However, he did set up meeting with Tsapos to learn the current state of the program. He then met with all of the returning starters and their parents just to gain a sense of each player’s background and where she could fit.

Traditionally, Pace has run a 4-3-3 attacking style. He likes to use quick passing with overlaps from his outside backs to help build the rush. By building up, he’s going to want to apply the pressure to the other side.

There should be the opportunity to do that. Colleyville Heritage went 11-7-5 in 2015, finished third in District 7-6A and advanced to the Class 6A Region I area round before losing to Byron Nelson, 2-0. The Lady Panthers are expected to return such key players as midfielders Jasmyn Sollars, Allie Lumpkin and forward Shine Pickler.

“It’s always a challenge taking over in the summer,” Pace said. “But the good thing for us is that we don’t play games until January, so we’ll have the fall to evaluate everything. We can then tailor the season to what we have we. There’s a lot of returning players so I feel optimistic about what we can do.”

This story was originally published July 27, 2015 at 4:07 PM with the headline "New Lady Panthers soccer coach hails from quality Hebron program."