Baltimore Child Abuse Center

Our 2011 season was dedicated to the BCAC (Balimore Child Abuse Center). The girls wore blue shoelaces and wrote BCAC on their wrists each game to remind them who they were playing for. Now that the season is finished, the grand total of money the girls earned for this wonderful cause is $3,048. It is estimated that 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys will be sexually abused in their lifetime making this an extremley important cause that the girls wanted to pursue. Along with raising this money, every week the players took turns going to the center to play with children, clean the center, organize paperwork or whatever the center needed that particular day. Jennifer Noparstak, MSW, Director of Development for the BCAC said "We are so appreciative of the Stevenson University women's soccer team's help throughout their 2011 season, in addition to assisting BCAC in raising awareness and funds, the players are volunteering their time weekly, spending a few hours with children at the Center and providing them a sense of security and caring." I am so very proud of my girls. Senior and Junior Captains Stephanie Eyler and Taylor Zimmerman came up with this idea completely on their own, organized everything and truly did our community a service.

Road to ECAC's

With our strength of schedule and winning record we were certain our season was not over. We took the weekend off to mourn our loss and then got immediately back into the swing of soccer having a couple fun, hard working practices. Turns out we were ONE TEAM AWAY from getting a bid to NCAA's however since we did not get in to the NCAA's we were asked to compete in the ECAC's. We were the second seed in this tournament meaning Neumann traveled to us. The girls took care of business scoring 7 goals (frustration from not scoring enough against St. Mary's I'm sure)! Then we traveled to Frostburg where we won an intense battle against a future MAC rival Albright. It was an extremely physical game that we ended up winning 1 -0. We stayed overnight in a hotel where the girls had way to much fun competing in Graeme's "Pub Quiz" (which he stayed up until 2 am creating the world's hardest trivia questions). Dinner was delicious and everyone was in excellent spirits as they sang their way onto the field Sunday for the Championship game. Story of our lives however, we dominate, out shoot, and lose. We outshot Frostburg 21 - 14 and had 5 corner kicks to 0. We hit the cross bar THREE TIMES and just could not catch a break. They scored a beauty in the first half, and if you can't finish you can't win so we ended our season with a 1-0 loss. Again, we were extremely proud of ourselves and we walked away knowing if we get better at finishing our opportunities we are UNSTOPPABLE.

CAC Let Down.

Unfortunately we lost a tough CAC semi-final game against St. Marys. Both teams fought hard and St. Mary's was able to capitalize to take the win. They are exceptionally well in transition and we broke down defensively twice letting them score 2 goals. They scored first early into the game and Jamie Matlock scored before the half taking us into the locker room tied at 1-1. We had 27 shots on goal and only score once, almost unbelievable. They had 7 shots on goal and finished 2. Heartbreaking as it is, that is the game of soccer that we love so much. St. Mary's went to Salisbury and lost in OT. Making Salisbury the CAC Champs. Much to our disappointment, we let our repeat championship slip away. However, all in all the girls did have an excellent and extremely fun season and I am very proud of their work both on and off the field.