South Kitsap athletic director Ed Santos was successful with his previous club-to-high school coaching hire.
Santos followed that route again Wednesday when he named Julie Cain as the school’s new girls soccer coach.
Cain, 35, relocated to Port Orchard last year — her husband, Andrew, is the principal at Cedar Heights Junior High — and was a Westsound FC club soccer coach after several years of working at the collegiate level.
She served as an assistant coach at Seattle Pacific University from 2002-05. The Redhawks won the Great Northwest Athletic Conference titles in each of her four years.
Cain, who graduated from Shoreline’s Shorewood High, played center-midfield at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, Calif., from 1992-95. She was an assistant coach the following year when Westmont had 15-5-2 record and ended the season ranked No. 1 in NAIA.
She now is the third girls soccer coach in as many years at South and the fourth in the last five years. Cain follows Scott Sodorff (2006-07) and Michael Krug (2008), another Westsound FC coach who guided the Wolves’ boys program to a state title last spring before resigning from both positions.
“When we moved here a year ago, I started looking for a high-school job and South Kitsap was my first choice,” said Cain, who worked as a financial consultant in Bellevue before her son, Alexander, was born 4 months ago. “I plan to be here as long as they’ll have me.”
Defender Alyssa Nystrom, arguably the best player on the Wolves’ team last year that finished 12-5-1 and advanced to state, graduated and signed to play at the University of Montana. But Cain, who watched South beat Bellarmine Prep last year, said she’s excited about the returning talent.
She noted the size of South in addition to the many players coming through local club teams as reasons why the program can sustain success.
“It’s a school where you can build a dynasty,” she said.
Cain, who said Carla Cole (junior varsity) and Meagan Turner (C team), will return to the program, prefers to play an aggressive style of soccer. She said fans can expect to see a lot of counter-attacks on the defensive end and a “high-pressure possession game” at the other end.
