Marquette’s women’s soccer team begins its spring season this Saturday at College Station, Texas, when it plays Baylor and Texas A&M.
These will be Marquette’s first outdoor games since its shootout loss (4-3) to No. 23 Dayton in the first round of the 2009 NCAA Tournament. The women were ranked No. 10 in the country when the loss ended their season.
Marquette finished 15-5-3 in 2009 and is coming off its best season since the 2005-’06 season. In 2005, Marquette reached the third round of the NCAA Tournament and lost to No. 4 UCLA, 1-0.
The 2009 fall season is over though, and with it went eight seniors that led the school to its first ever Big East American Division Title.
Forward Kristi Laurenzi said she and fellow juniors need to step up and become leaders over the course of the spring season to fill the void the seniors left.
Junior forward Julia Victor said one component that doesn’t need work is team chemistry.
“I think that’s one thing about the spring that other teams like to use it for – to keep the team together and make sure that there’s no drama or conflict,” Victor said. “With our team we have very little of that.”
The spring games don’t count toward any conference title or a postseason birth. The point of the spring season is to give the players something to look forward to besides practice, Victor said.
“It gives you something to play for rather than just practicing five days a week for thirteen straight weeks,” Victor said. “It gives you a kind of taste of the fall, but with more time to spend on fitness.”
The spring season pushes Marquette outside onto Valley Fields and away from the gymnasium, something their competition this weekend won’t have had a problem with. Down in Texas, teams are more likely to practice outdoors year round.
Marquette’s first opponent, Baylor (8-6-5 in 2009), lost in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament to Texas A&M, 2-0. Texas A&M (15-7-3) finished the fall season at No. 13 in the country. Its fall season ended in the third round of the NCAA Tournament in a 2-1 double overtime loss to No. 5 Florida State.
Marquette played Texas A&M last spring and lost to the Aggies, 1-0. But Baylor is more of an unknown team, coach Markus Roeders said.“(Baylor’s) a bit of a mixed group,” Roeders said. “They’ve lost some older players, but they also had a lot of younger players. I expect them to be quite athletic and aggressive.”
Laurenzi said Texas A&M has historically been a top 25 team year in and year out.Roeders said it’s not about the final product, but how the team performed during the game.
“The results at the end are secondary,” he said. “It’s really about learning and getting better and having a better understanding of each other. If scoring goals or winning games comes with it then I’ll feel very good about how the weekend went.”
