HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College women's soccer team faces a challenging path in 2011 during what it hopes will be a fifth straight trip to the Centennial Conference tournament, and perhaps beyond.

The Fords finished with a 12-5-1 mark in 2010 and reached the conference semifinal before bowing out on penalty kicks to nationally-ranked and league champion Johns Hopkins University. It was the second time during the season that the Fords pushed the Blue Jays to the limit, falling to the hosts by a goal in the game's 87th minute in an early-October match-up.

The 2011 Fords open their season with the annual Kick-Off Tournament hosted on Walton Field where they will take on visiting Arcadia University whom they defeated last season in the tournament's opening game, 2-1. Wilkes College and Rutgers University-Camden are the other teams participating in the tournament.

The road gets immediately more challenging the following weekend when the Fords travel to Purchase, N.Y., to participate in the Manhattanville (College) Tournament. Haverford squares off with Eastern Connecticut State University in the opener, taking on a Warriors squad that won the Little East Conference and went unbeaten (16-0-1) until losing in the third round of the NCAA tournament. Next up will be the host Valliants who captured the 2010 Freedom Conference championship before falling in the opening round of the national tournament.

Haverford's only  conference losses in the 2010 regular season were to NCAA tournament participants Johns Hopkins and Dickinson College as well as to Muhlenberg College, all by one goal and all on the road. The Fords hope to turn the tide in those Centennial rematches in 2011, as well as avenge one of the other blemishes in the 2010 slate during a trip to Lebanon Valley College who stole a 1-0 victory in 2010 with a goal in the game's final minute.

The regular season concludes with a home game against rival Swarthmore College whom the Fords have not lost to since the 2006 season.