ROCHESTER — Maddy Harden’s time to rest will come when this Rochester Community and Technical College women’s soccer season is done. Until then, expect the 2023 Dover-Eyota graduate to go pretty much the entire 90 minutes on game days for the Yellowjackets. This is called taking it for the team and with just 13 rostered RCTC players, there is no strength here in numbers.
It’s a good thing then that there is strength in Harden. RCTC coach Bryan Weiss asked pretty much the same thing of her a year ago, even when he did have the benefit of a deeper bench. ADVERTISEMENT She delivered then and he knows she’ll deliver now.
“We did that last year with her, too,” said Weiss, whose team kicked off its season Wednesday with a 5-2 victory at Dakota County Technical College. “We had her out there pretty much the whole time. We try to keep our scorers (she was second on the team in 2023 with 12 goals) out there as much as possible.
Maddy is a great player. She has a soccer background, having played for a high-level club team. Plus, she has speed and vision and she can pass and make shots.
She just has to work through (playing the entire game), because we need her to play offense and defense for 90 minutes.” Harden does know how to do that. Halftime, for her, is a beautiful thing.
“Playing an entire game is not ideal,” Harden said. “Last year was difficult. But you have halftime to recover, and then you go out there and do it again.
Knowing that it could lead to a w.