Numbers to Results: SPT in action with Gannon Men’s Soccer
Already a consistent national contender out of the PSAC, Coach Billy Colton and the Gannon Golden Knights Men’s Soccer program implemented SPT in the 2021 offseason. Over the past 4 seasons, Gannon has won 61 matches and qualified for back-to-back NCAA Tournaments.
Heading into the 2025 offseason, Coach Colton was able to break down the ways SPT improves practice planning, internal competition, injury prevention, and summer conditioning to keep his program competing on the national stage.
“The team completely embraced the data. After games, they are looking at it themselves and comparing who had the highest speed, who ran the most, who did the most sprints. It's almost like a competition among them.”
When it comes to tangible outcomes on the pitch, Coach Colton has “been able to use it a lot for planning practice when we have had a longer time in between games” and identify when “we need to have heavier or lighter sessions. We can obviously see when we think they have worked hard, but we always double check it with the data as sometimes you get a surprise.”
“It also allows us to manage workload during the season, which we have found to decrease the number of muscle injuries and then we have more players to choose from throughout the season.“
Keeping players ready throughout the offseason is just as important as practice planning in-season. Gannon leverages game data that they collect in the Fall to shape their offseason conditioning program. “We make our summer workout plan all based on game data numbers to make sure they are coming in fit and ready.”
Intangible outcomes of intrasquad competition and tangible results seen in their practice planning, game preparation, and offseason conditioning are all benefits of GPS tracking…but why SPT?
“It's easy to use. We don't have a big staff, so we can't spend hours and hours looking over all the numbers. We have a few metrics (Total Distance, Sprint Efforts, Sprint Yardage) that we monitor, and we use them to benefit the program and the players. If we do have a problem, SPT responds very quickly to get it fixed.”
SPT is excited to see the continued success of Gannon Men’s Soccer!