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Women's Soccer 2007 Outlook

Is the glass half empty or half full?
On the one hand, the Highlanders women’s soccer team enters the 2007 season riding a 63-game unbeaten streak in regular season games. On the other hand, they open the season against the very team—Madonna University (Livonia, MI)—that last beat them (in September 2003).

On the one hand, the team has gone to the NAIA national tournament in each of the last four years. On the other, eight starters from last year’s Elite 8 team are gone, including all four defensive backs that helped the Highlanders finish second in the NAIA with a goals-against average of just 0.41. Not to worry, Head Coach David Lewis notes: the last time the team lost all four starting defenders, the next year’s team set a school record with 18 shutouts in 21 games played.

The 2007 team’s defense should benefit from returning sophomore goalkeeper Becky Wakeman, who started the first five games last season (and shut out Lindsey Wilson College, the team that won the national championship, 1-0) before breaking her foot, and senior goalkeeper Lauren Foster, who joins the team this year. Juniors Mandy Lewandowski, Kaylan Reynolds, Rebecca Buszka and Rebeeca Dix are ready to step in and anchor the back positions. Joining them will be freshmen Chelsea Adams and Carolynn Tomlinson (though Tomlinson will also play a great deal at outside midfield).
The two top scorers on the team, Bethany Kowalczyk (21 goals, 13 assists) and Hannah Swift (15, 8) return for their senior and junior years, respectively, but the next three players on the 2006 team’s scoring list are gone. “We’ll be a strong attacking team,” Lewis insists, noting that the arrival of first-year players Lauren Hagerty (Warren, NJ/Watchung Hills Regional High School) and Kaylin Bull (Weare, NH/John Stark Regional) will bolster the offense that finished eighth in the country last year, scoring 3.41 goals per game. Kowalcyzk looks strong after undergoing off-season ACL surgery and will be aiming to set the Houghton career scoring mark. She enters the season with 79 goals, three shy of the record. Senior Casey Lawton is also healthy after an ankle injury hampered her play the past two seasons. She will likely bolster the attack.

So is this year’s team rebuilding or reloading?

Lewis thinks it’s the latter, recalling the 2004 team that went to the Sweet 16 of the NAIA’s national tournament. Many players on that team had seen significant playing time—though not necessarily as starters—on the previous year’s squad. The 2007 team should be similar, Lewis says, because “they’re fully capable.” After a pause, he adds “If they realize it themselves.”

Lewis notes that Houghton’s long tradition of soccer excellence will be a help. “They know how to win,” he says, “They expect to win.” Still, he will admit that a lot depends on how quickly and how well the players adapt to their new roles. “I’m fully confident,” he says, “It’s more about their personal confidence.”

That confidence might be strained by a schedule that pits the team against difficult opponents early and often, including that season opener against Madonna and two others who finished in the NAIA’s Top 25 last year among the first six games. “We’ll see what we’re made of,” Lewis says, “They’re going into the deep end and they’re going to have to learn how to swim quickly.”

And does he expect that the season will end with the team’s fifth straight national tournament appearance (and eighth since 1998)?

“One day at a time” says Lewis. “We deliberately have decided not to set a team objective for the season. Each day we’re going to set our goals for that day.” Much depends on the “team dynamic,” he says, which “is always a critical part, but is accentuated this year.”
Pressed, he admits that he likes the players’ “inner drive,” noting that their expectations for the season come from themselves, not from others. “They really want to get there [to the national tournament],” he says with a grin, “because this year it’s being held in Daytona Beach.”