Robert Morris University’s women’s soccer program has been around for 10 years, and has never seen either a winning season, or made it to the Northeast Conference playoffs. This 2011 season is undoubtedly different.
Since starting off the season beating tough teams such as Syracuse (1-0), and Eastern Washington (3-1), most can say we’ve had a good run thus far. I say ‘we’ because I am a senior on our Women’s Soccer team, but I don’t want to stop at ‘thus far.’
Teammate and senior forward Rachel Sebbens says, “Beating Syracuse and Eastern Washington gave us the confidence that we needed to beat better teams. It set the pace early for our season.”
This season, we have had an unbelievable burst of strength, focus, and pride, which has landed us a winning season.
This past Sunday was our senior day game and celebration. Our game was a tough one, but anyone in attendance would say that it wasn’t our team that lost us the game, it was the referees.
Bryant scored first, within the first 20 minutes of the game, and it seemed after their goal the referees were on their side. Our girls would be fouled numerous times, and if we touched Bryant, immediately would be called a foul. It was almost impossible for us to get a break.
In the second half, we also got an unnecessary penalty kick called on us. We all had confidence in our senior goalie Jess Olin, but the shot went right over her, putting Bryant up 2-0.
With about seven minutes left in the game, Senior Brianna Bell found Sophmore Johanna Kadam for a diving header goal. That gave us some confidence, but there wasn’t much time left to generate another goal. We ended the game with a 2-1 loss.
Wagner, and Long Island University are the next two teams that stand in the way of us making another new history changer–playoffs.
Each of these games are completely beatable teams and we hope to secure our spot shortly. Even though these teams may be beatable, taking them lightly is not an option.
Our goal of having a winning season has been met, but we aren’t stopping there. Making NEC’s is what we want. It is a program first, that, we are optimistic won’t be our last.
