Mountain Hawks look back on 2008 season
12/4/2008 9:30:00 AM | Women's Soccer
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Every season, the goals remain the same for the Lehigh women’s soccer team: to qualify for the Patriot League tournament, and to compete for a Patriot League Championship. The Mountain Hawks showed promise in 2008, but were plagued by inconsistency in a 6-10-1 campaign that left Lehigh outside of the tournament for the second straight year. There were bright spots, however, including several gritty early season wins and a 2-0 triumph over eventual league champion Army in the season finale, where the Mountain Hawks put together their most impressive performance of the year, a sign of what Lehigh’s season could have been like, and a reason for optimism as the program readies for 2009.
“Though our overall results were somewhat disappointing, our performance in our final match of the year was very encouraging,” said head coach Manny Oudin. “Against Army, we put a full match together. We played at a level that we had not reached during the season. We were able to capitalize on our chances, which is something he had not been able to do in a lot of our matches this season, and we came away with a win over the eventual league champions.”
The Mountain Hawks could have packed it in for the season after being eliminated from postseason contention with home losses to Bucknell and Colgate, but instead put forth their most complete effort of the season against an Army side that was still playing for a Patriot League regular season title.
Army would eventually go on to win the Patriot League title, but the Halloween Night match-up at West Point would belong to the Brown and White. The Mountain Hawks controlled the flow of play and outshot the Black Knights 24-11 en route to a 2-0 victory. Junior Natalie Hojnacki and freshman Jana Basubas tallied goals for Lehigh, the only goals allowed by Army in Patriot League play in 2008.
“We showed a lot of character in that final match,” explained Oudin, who completed his seventh season. “For our seniors, it was their final game and they wanted to finish their careers on a positive note and our young players wanted to finish strong heading into the off-season. If you look back at how the Patriot League played out this season, we we’re the only team to score on Army, which makes that result a little more special.”
Lehigh held its own through the first half of the season, and entered league play at 4-4-1. On opening night, the Mountain Hawks hung tough with eventual NCAA tournament participant Rutgers, before falling 2-1. Two days later, in what would become a reoccurring theme in the early season Lehigh and Albany were scoreless through over 88 minutes of soccer before Hojnacki redirected a centering pass from freshman Corinne Parkinson for the only goal in a 1-0 victory.
The next weekend brought a trip to Davidson, N.C. for the adidas Classic. The Mountain Hawks held their own with Davidson and the College of Charleston, but came home with a draw and a 1-0 loss. A week later, Lehigh picked up win number two on the road at Cornell, as sophomore Danielle Fritz delivered the game’s only goal in the 70th minute.
Lehigh wrapped up the month of September with three more 1-0 contests. The Mountain Hawks battled defending NEC Champion Monmouth for over 90 minutes before losing 1-0 in overtime. Lehigh bounced back though with back-to-back wins over Marist and Fairleigh Dickinson to head into Patriot League play on a high note.
Unfortunately for the Mountain Hawks, the beginning to the league season coincided with the roughest stretch of the season for the Brown and White. Lehigh struggled to find the back of the net in the midst of a four game losing streak in which the Mountain Hawks was outscored 7-0 and found itself 0-3 in the league after three contests.
On October 18, Lehigh enjoyed another shining moment, with a 2-0 road win at Lafayette, the program’s seventh straight triumph over its archrival. Capitalizing on an own goal and a strike from freshman Ali MacLeod in the game’s first seven minutes, Lehigh pitched its fourth shutout of the season, and inserted itself back into the playoff picture.
“We had some good performances throughout the season,” noted Oudin. “We played well in many of our early season matches. Obviously, beating Lafayette at their place is always a nice accomplishment. The one thing to take away from this season is that we played well, but we never played with enough consistency.
Oudin continued, “In a lot of matches, we out-shot our opponents but did not out-score them. Moving forward we’ll need to work on finishing matches, and playing full matches. It is not acceptable to keep things close and just be in the match. We need to play full matches and be stingy defensively and do better with our opportunities on the offensive end.”
As the Mountain Hawks move forward in preparation for 2009, the program prepares to say goodbye to a senior class that made major contributions as freshmen to the record-setting 2005 team, which shared the Patriot League regular season title. Allie Caldwell, Julie Kafka, Amy Mastromonaco and Emily Means all made major contributions to the success of Lehigh soccer, both on and off the pitch, as did the fifth member of the senior class, two-year captain Hailey Coonrad, who is expected to seek a medical hardship exemption for a fifth year of eligibility.
One of the most exciting things for Lehigh, moving forward, is the amount of talent the program returns. The Mountain Hawks will return nine starters, including goalkeeper Lauren Mains, who was twice recognized as the Patriot League Goalkeeper of the Week. Offensively, Lehigh returns over 80 percent of its scoring, with Hojnacki and MacLeod leading the way. As many as 23 players could return next year and with another strong incoming class of freshmen on the way, Lehigh is looking forward to the opportunity to work towards a return to the postseason in 2009.
“I’m really excited about the young players we have in this program,” said Oudin. “We got some good play from many of them throughout the season. This off-season will be important in terms of development. As a program we need to find our identity, and it’s important for our players to continue to work hard and bring the right mentality as we prepare for next season.”
