The spring season for the Marquette women’s soccer team has always been a time for the team to sharpen its skills and work with new players who might not have a lot of prior experience playing together.
That’s certainly the case this spring as the Golden Eagles will have to replace departed seniors Natalie Kulla, Kerry McBride and Lindsey Page from a team that won a third consecutive Big East American Division Championship and went to the second round of the NCAA Tournament last season.
While official statistics aren’t accumulated during the spring, coach Markus Roeders and company will play a total of eight matches, hosting only one at Valley Fields.
Roeders is happy with the team’s progress so far this spring and is looking forward to a challenging spring slate.
“We’ve been working on team training for the past five, six weeks now, three days a week,” Roeders said. “I like what we’ve been doing, and they’ve been working really hard.
“We don’t necessarily see the benefits every day, but I think as we move forward they’ll have a nice foundation going into the summer,” he said.
Some nagging injuries have left the team shorthanded so far, including what Roeders deemed some “longer term” injuries to players like senior forward Rachael Sloan, sophomore midfielder Kate Reigle and others who won’t be available until the fall season begins in August.
Sloan missed nearly all of last season with a knee injury but redshirted, preserving another year of eligibility.
Junior forward Rachel Brown is in her final spring season in a Golden Eagle uniform and has tried to embrace a leadership role both on the field and off.
“We all kind of prepared ourselves for losing the seniors, but I think that we can recover, and the most you can do is move forward,” Brown said. “We do have a lot of talent even though we have some younger players.”
Sophomore defender Katie Hishmeh, along with junior defender Ally Miller, now has the most experience on the Golden Eagles’ vaunted back line after the departures of McBride and Kulla. Hishmeh knows she has to become a more vocal leader to make sure everyone is where they are supposed to be.
“It’s a good learning experience, and it’s good to get new people out there,” Hishmeh said. “I feel like now more than ever I’m able to help the new players and give them the pointers from what I’ve learned in the past.”
The Golden Eagles went 1-1 last weekend, beating Loyola (Illinois) 5-2 before falling to Illinois State, an NCAA Tournament team last season, 4-2.
Just 20 minutes after the win against Loyola, the Golden Eagles took on a rested Illinois State team and appeared a bit fatigued, according to Roeders.
“The hard part last weekend was playing back to back,” Roeders said. “Illinois State was better than Loyola, and, as the game wore on, we made more mistakes.”
There’s no rest for the weary this weekend, as Marquette travels to Champaign, Ill. Saturday to take on Illinois at noon, before making the three-hour drive to Evanston, Ill. to take on Northwestern for a 6 p.m. tilt.