Julianne Sitch in her first practice with the Atlanta Beat (Photo courtesy Atlanta Beat).
The Atlanta Beat acquired Kelly Parker and Julianne Sitch from the Western New York Flash on Thursday in exchange for first and second round draft picks.
Both Sitch and Parker played limited roles on a stacked Western New York team. Sitch failed to make an appearance with the Flash, while Parker played in four matches with the Flash, starting two. In 154 minutes with the Flash, Parker registered one assist.
“I know that they are both very competitive, so I think it’s going to rub off on some of our younger players,” said Atlanta Head Coach James Galanis. “They are both fantastic individuals as locker room personalities, and they have this never say die attitude which I think can help us a lot.”
The move is a curious one for Atlanta, which adds two veteran role players to its young team but at a steep price. Since early in the offseason Atlanta has talked about how it would be a young team that will build toward the future and develop players. Giving up first and second round draft picks next year seems to contradict that.
Sure, the move suggests that Atlanta wants to win now, but Parker and Sitch are role players, not high impact players. Giving up the chance to pick up two top young players in next years draft doesn’t seem to fall in line with everything else Atlanta has done in the past eight months, especially considering the Beat could hold the No. 1-overall draft pick in 2012.
However, the move does fall in line with Atlanta’s previous trades, which also saw the Beat give away high draft picks for little in return. Atlanta made just two of the 24 selections in the 2011 WPS Draft. The Beat chose Kylie Wright out of UCLA with the No. 7-overall pick and Meghan Lenczyk out of Virginia at No. 14.
