At the end of 2008 and for the second consecutive season the Fords battled their way into the Centennial Conference postseason tournament, a destination head coach Jamie Gluck's team has set their sights on once again.
A return trip for a third time in a row would be a first for the program but the league's coaches believe Gluck and her Fords will have a tough road on the way to the five-team tournament this year voting Haverford into the sixth place spot in the 2009 Centennial preseason coaches' poll.
Haverford aims to prove the preseason pundits wrong and the return of more than 75 percent of their offensive output from the previous season should certainly help.
With Katie Van Aken (six goals), Michelle Buonora (five), Erin Dowling (three) and Sarah Andrade (two) returning the Fords bring back four of their top six goal scorers and a total of 16 of the team's 21 goals from 2008. In Van Aken, the Fords have a forward that closed 2008 on a hot streak scoring all six of her goals—of which three were game-winners—within the team's final nine games while Dowling netted two game-winners from the three goals she scored in 2008. The losses from the roster that might have given pause to the voting coaches in the league all came from the starting line-up, two from the defensive zone and none bigger than diminutive goalkeeper Lindsay Festa who started 65 of 67 games in her career including every game over her final three seasons.
However, one returner on the back line is All-Centennial defender Maura Schiefer and Gluck sees quite a lot of experience joining Schiefer in the defensive end as Erin Verrier, Kristen Sockett and Katey Scionti accumulated 18, 15 and 12 starts, respectively, last season. Kayleigh Herrick-Reynolds accumulated just over 100 minutes between the pipes during her first two seasons for the Fords while backing up Festa but over six games worth of work Herrick-Reynolds didn't allow a goal. The junior will look to provide a steady back-stop as the last line of defense for the 2009 Fords.
Without many holes from her returning line-up and 14 returners, Gluck will have the luxury of not having to thrust seven newcomers onto the pitch right away. Two of the freshmen, Rachel Davis and Allison Martinez-Davis, will take over Herrick-Reynolds' role as back-ups to the starting keeper. The five remaining newcomers are likely to see playing time but in varying degrees.
The 2008 schedule included NCAA tournament participants Johns Hopkins, Lynchburg (Va.) and Otterbein (Ohio) as well as eventual national champion Messiah (Pa.) College. The revamped slate in 2009 includes the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, a perennial conference champion contender from the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference who will square off against the Fords in the early-season Haverford Kickoff Classic, two-time defending co-champions Moravian College of the Landmark Conference, and Hopkins who will be seeking their fifth straight Centennial tournament crown and enter the season as the preseason favorite.
The questions for the Fords coming into 2009 will be can an experienced offensive attack generate more scoring, will they need to find the back of the net more often with the new goalie or will Herrick-Reynolds emerge as a brick wall in the defensive end, and will a handful of the returning role players or newcomers be able to step in for the other pair of seniors who graduated last spring?
Gluck's confidence in her team and the continued progress of the players under her charge say the good bet will be on the Fords, once again, working their way into the postseason.