2020 Season Preview

 

 

Women's Soccer Grateful for Fall Semester Opportunities

The Haverford College women's soccer team advanced to the NCAA Tournament last year after an outstanding season. Even with no matches this fall, the Fords are not letting that deter the motivation that has led them into the postseason during each of the last four years.

Taking advantage of this unique privilege on campus

"We really take to heart this idea of 'to November and beyond,'" said co-captain Hannah Friedrich. "We had a really cool taste of that last season, getting an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament."

Nevertheless, the drive and passion of this team has not faded as the Fords continue to improve on a daily basis. Friedrich continued by stating, "With this challenge right now, you can also interpret it as an opportunity to focus and really work on little components of the game that you don't give a lot of attention to under normal circumstances."

Those smaller, specialized components of the game are given greater attention this fall as the team is broken up into training sessions by positional group with the guidelines limiting large gatherings. That small group setting has allowed for individual attention to a specific aspect of the game while each player is also getting more reps than usual with a smaller group sizes in practice.

Nevertheless, the Haverford College women's soccer program has been the embodiment of a total family effort. With a large number of this year's seniors studying abroad before schools around the country went to remote learning, the Fords are certainly relishing every chance to improve their team dynamic and further strengthen that bond.

Making the best of these uncertain times, the team is focused on all the positives that the opportunity to be on campus has provided. Senior Marina Piccolo commented that, "It's actually been a positive for our team. When we go get dinner or go get brunch together, it's in a smaller group so you really get to know the people you are with. So we have been trying to mix it up, especially in small groups, to try and get to know everyone."

Activate Athletics for Social Justice

Students at Haverford come to campus with a wide range of passions and are encouraged to explore those areas as they pursue a liberal arts education. Just one more example of this is the women's soccer team forming Activate Athletes for Social Justice during the fall semester.

This initiative, which commences on Monday, October 5, will give four teams a week to take on a topic and spearhead discussions within both the athletic community and greater community at Haverford. Four teams will each have a week to select a cause or issue that is important to them as this project will continue throughout the month of October. Women's soccer will begin the month long event taking a deeper look at voter suppression.

"We had questions of how we can change behaviors and discourses to reflect these important issues," explained Saede Eifrig. "We knew that a lot of others teams were having very similar summers and engaging in a lot of different ways. What we hope to achieve with was to create an opportunity for teams to connect and expand those conversations."

Throughout the four-week period and beyond, the Activate Athletes for Social Justice teams will look to uncover to intersectionality of the issues with the goal of carrying on these conversations beyond the upcoming month.

Academic and Athletic Success

Adding another area of excellence to the student-athlete experience at Haverford College, the women's soccer team was recently recognized as a United Soccer Coaches Team Academic Award recipient. The award recognizes teams that maintain a grade point average of 3.0 or higher. Haverford has won this award in 15 consecutive seasons, but last year's team really emphasized the fact that students can excel both in the classroom and on the playing field as the Fords had the highest team GPA of any Division III program that advanced to the NCAA Tournament.

 "I think [this recognition] definitely speaks to how much Haverford allows us to balance academics and athletics," said Emily Thissen. "It's really cool to see our team recognized on a national level, especially with our really successful soccer season last year. People work really hard here at Haverford and really take pride in what they do in the classroom and so it's awesome to see that recognized."

With the entire women's soccer program taking this semester head on and being grateful for every opportunity presented to them, it should come as no surprise that this team reached the heights that it did in 2019. Even though this fall will not look like the traditional semester, it is safe to say that this group of Fords is putting in the work to come out firing on all cylinders when the team is able to showcase its talents on a competitive stage.