While everyone moves back on campus this August, the Brandeis Women’s Soccer team has been working hard on campus since Aug. 18 to get ready for the upcoming season. Coming off a hard loss against William Smith in the NCAA Tournament in the Sweet 16, the Judges have been working hard to come out even stronger this season in hopes of a national championship. The Judges ended with a 15-3-4 record and graduated eight seniors at the end of last season, but have high hopes for this upcoming season and the incoming first years. The women are currently ranked 14th in the nation by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America in Division III. While everyone is back home working hard to get ready for the upcoming season, Michaela Freidman ’17 says that she is looking forward to being “back with my best friends and playing the sport I have grown to love since I was three.” She tells us that she hopes “that we can make it further in the NCAA tournament than ever before. The year before we came in as [first years] the team made it to the Elite Eight, I think we all would sacrifice almost anything to make it to the Final Four. Every year we are getting one step closer to our dream: winning a national championship.”
Last spring, the previous Assistant Coach Kerry Baldwin announced she will not be returning to Brandeis in the fall. Head Coach Denise Dallamora says that while there will be changes in the team’s program with a new assistant coach and incoming first years, the team will only improve and grow as a whole. Her greatest accomplishment as a coach at Brandeis is “the ability to work with some very amazing young women,” which will continue this upcoming season. Since the program has “a great group of players, the dynamic will only improve or stay the same.” Maddie Marx ’19 tells us that she is most looking forward to “playing on a team with undeniable potential. Making it to the Sweet Sixteen last season felt great, but I think that the last loss housed a determination within us all to make it even further this season.” Marx also shares that the team “lost a great group of girls who I looked up to coming on this team. Girls who made a true impact on and off the field. That said, I am not worried about being able to fill holes because I know we have girls who are ready to step up. I believe the new assistant will be a good asset to this team and the true team dynamic will come from the leadership of our seniors and captains this year.”
With this amount of determination and hard work that is being put into their pre-season, the Brandeis women’s soccer team are destined to come out strong at their first match of the season at home against MIT on Thursday, Sept. 1 at 7.
