Women's Soccer
Soccer, especially women's soccer, is a sport where freshmen can make a big impact. Most top players end up being 4-year starters at their school. Part of our struggle last year was due to a poor freshman class. Only one player, Allyson Brown, got any significant playing time and even she was not a starter. This is reinforced this year where, as sophomores (or red-shirt freshmen), Brown continues to be the lone second year player seeing the field. The good news is, we have a solid freshman class. Our top 6 freshmen have all seen more playing time than Allyson Brown. Broken down by recruiting class, the 2018 class is seeing 30% of the playing time compared to only 4% for the 2017 class (2016 class is 38% and 2015 class is 28%). It is rare when a top player red-shirts but that was the case with Kelsey Irwin due to injury. She came in with the 2015 class but still has a year of eligibility after this year. When that is figured in, the current senior class is playing only 19% of the total minutes. With 6 freshmen in the rotation, we have a chance to improve over the course of the season. Look for Emily Gray to emerge as one of our top players. Next year should result in even further improvement as long as we don't have another bad recruiting year.
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Posted: 08/27/2018 at 2:57PM