Dixie State University added numerous recruits to its athletic programs in the recent weeks, highlighted by National Signing Day on Feb. 4.
Signing day is mainly focused on football prospects from around the country, but student-athletes from other fall sports often sign their letter of intent on the day as well.
Before a player signs their National Letter of Intent, they go through a recruiting process. This process is different for every player based on the schools that show interest in their ability.
Along with the difficulty of getting players to come to smaller schools, there are also disadvantages in scholarships. Dixie State football competes in the Division II classification, thus limiting it to 36 available scholarships, compared to the 85 in Division I. This can only be combatted by one promise: playing time.
DSU football is also trying to use personnel to land recruits, something that head coach Scott Brumfield thinks the new hired coaches will help with greatly. The aforementioned hires being offensive coordinator Blaine Monkres and defensive coordinator Shay McClure.
National Signing Day was especially exciting for the DSU football team. Dixie landed 31 new recruits, listed on the DSU athletic site. This signing class is loaded with players from California, something McClure played a big part in. McClure held the same position at Humboldt State University in California for the last eight years.
Brumfield spoke highly of McClure.
“Shay will add great leadership to this football team,” Brumfield said. “He brings a lot of experience defensively, and he is great for our recruiting.”
Monkres is the former head coach at Dixie High School. He is coming off a state championship with the Flyers and is bringing four players from that team with him to DSU. Brumfield said Monkres knowledge of football in the state is a huge recruiting edge.
Coming off the first 10-win season since 2010, the DSU women’s soccer team also added 13 new players, all but three of them coming from in-state. Head coach Kacey Bingham said she’s very excited about this class.
“We had a great group of seniors that we can’t replace, but these are great soccer players,” Bingham said. “I’m excited to see how they develop.”
The players that signed are Elle Clark (Olympus); Jennie Davis (Pleasant Grove); Alexa Estridge (Dixie); Jordyn Goodrich (Riverton); Shelby Gunny (Shadow Ridge, Nevada); Sadie Kroll (Rocky Mountain, Idaho); Kilee Lamb (Sky View); Nichole Mertz (Springville); Lindsee Moffat (Timpview); Lizzy Newman (American Fork); Jessica Ogilvie (Dixie); Demi Van Ocker (Boise, Idaho) and Tori Washington (Herriman).
The men’s soccer team also added some new talent, hoping to take off under first-year head coach Josh Pittman. Pittman was brought to Dixie State after playing and coaching at the professional level. Pittman was very excited about the opportunity to come to St. George and coach this team.
“We have goals to make this an elite-level program,” Pittman said. “I think these kids give us the opportunity to do that.”
The new additions to the soccer team are Zachary Nielson (Clearfield); Kyle Woolstenhulme (Pleasant Grove); Blake Evans (St. George) and Bradley Trella (Chandler, Arizona).
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