2013 SEASON

After two weeks of preparation, we are looking forward to travelling to Haverford on Saturday. We open with Eastern University Saturday at 4pm at Haverford and then face Haverford Sunday at 1pm. Our squad is composed of 23 returners and 10 new players. The 23 returners will bring us maturity and composure on the field this year while the new players will give us a spark of energy. Our pre-season showed just how talented our team is and we know we can be extrememly successful in the next three months. We were fortunate enough to meet with the President of our University, Dr. Manning, yesterday before practice. He is, of course, a huge Women's Soccer Fan and believes in our team. Dr. Manning helps instill in all Mustang Athletes the confidence that it takes to go to the next level. After an exciting trip to Scotland and England and a pre-season filled with bonding opportunities like field day and Zumba, the team is united and ready to make a statement. This season on the blog we will feature player profiles as well as player interviews! Next week: Junior Defender Gabby Kuhar and Sophomore (Transfer) Midfielder Jordan Porretto.

SUWS International Trip....London Baby!!!!

This posting has been a little delayed by internet issues overseas.

So here is a quick update of our trip to date....

Last Wednesday we set off on a journey of a lifetime as a team ready to enjoy the sights of Scotland and England...

As you can see the flight was a good time!!!!

First practice in the London soccer dome to shake off the weary legs.

Great day sightseeing in London, Cat asked the question does anyone live here????? haha

What's that in the background???

Our first game was against Millwall.....played well for first 30 minutes but then Millwall took over ending in a tough first loss.

So after three days in London, we had seen the sights of the capital city of England including Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, changing of the guard, Piccadilly Circus, Houses of Parliament, Downing Street and played a game and watched a professional game at Craven Cottage. The team had an amazing time and now we are off to the see the wonders of Scotland....more to follow!

2013 Spring Season!

Here at Stevenson, we are really excited about the warm weather and our spring season! On April 13th we are playing Bucknell University and Towson University on Towson's game field for our Spring Play Date. These are both NCAA Division I programs that we are confident we can compete with and will give us a great indication of where we are going into the summer. Our ladies have been working out and playing indoor and they are excited about getting back on the pitch! Before the end of the semester, we will give the girls a summer training program to get them in tip-top shape before we head to Scotland and England in August! This is another exciting event that we have to look forward to. We will play three games while we are oversees and then return just in time to move in and start pre-season. This will be a great bonding experience for the team and an adventure that they will remember forever! While we are in Scotland, Graeme will get to show us around his hometown and we will get to meet his mom!

This is an exciting time for Stevenson Women's Soccer and we are looking forward to all the things to come in the next few months! Make sure to check out our Fall 2013 schedule as we start off with a very competitive field of teams. Happy Spring!

Great end to our season!

The last few weeks have been exciting for the Mustangs! We beat Elizabethtown in the conference semi-finals in PK's. Allison Johnson saved three penalty kicks to help us advance to the conference finals versus Messiah. After a long, hard game on Friday night we headed to Messiah Sunday for the conference championship. While we came up short, we were still happy to have made it that far our first year in the MAC.

Unfortunately, we missed out on an at large bid to the NCAA tournament but we were the number 1 seed in the ECAC South bracket. We hosted Saint Vincent on Wednesday in the first round and defeated them 4-0 to move on to the semi finals. Although we were the first seed, we were unable to host and travelled to Swarthmore on Saturday to face Lebanon Valley again. The first time we played LVC we fought back from a 1-0 deficit to win 2-1. We played one of our best games on the season and won 2-0. Host school Swarthmore lost to Wilkes in penalty kicks which meant Sunday we would play Wilkes for the championship. We went down 1-0 in the first half versus Wilkes and we fought back to tie it off a Jamie Matlock goal. In the first overtime we got a corner and Shannon McGuire found Kayla Curry's head to end the game. Kayla and Taylor Zimmerman were able to end their stellar career at Stevenson University with an ECAC championship. Kayla Curry was also named tournament MVP.

The Mustangs had 7 players make All-Conference teams. Allison Johnson and Allie Ondrecjak represented the Mustangs on the first team, Jennifer Simkin, Taylor Zimmerman, Jamie Matlock, and Mackenzie Calhoun made second team, while Meaghan Williams was named to honorable mention.

We had a very successful year and we are looking forward to our spring season!

PLAY OFFS!

This week we moved up in the Regional Rankings to number 5! This is the last time rankings will be posted before the NCAA tournament field is announced! Friday night we host Elizabethtown in the MAC semi-finals at 7:30pm. The last time we met was October 16 and we battled 110 minutes to a 1-1 tie. Since the tie with E-Town, we have found the back of the net 15 times in 3 games. And after our loss to Messiah on September 29th, we have gone on an 8 game streak with out losing. We feel that we are ready to take on E-Town and advance to the conference championship!

If you are in the area, we would love to see you in the stands Friday night! This is a huge game and the more support from our friends and family, the better it will be!

Strong Conference Play

This week we host our last two regular season games in the MAC. Wednesday we play Hood at 7pm and on Saturday we have Alvernia at 1pm. Over the last few weeks, we have accomplished a lot as a team. Every Monday we set goals for the defenders, midfielders, forwards, and overall team. This helps us to gauge ourselves in ways other than just wins and losses. It also helps us to focus on areas that need improving and to keep getting better week after week.

At the beginning of the season we set goals for statistics during each game. A few of these include greater than 50% of our shots being on goal, not giving away more than 2 corner kicks, and aiming for shut outs each game. We keep these on a board in our locker room so that we know what we need to achieve to help win every game. These have also helped us realize that we can accomplish all of our goals and we have the capability to do amazing things with SU Soccer!

The first week in the MAC we had the conference offensive player of the week with Jamie Matlock and twice this month goalie Allison Johnson has represented Stevenson with defensive player of the week. Allie, a freshman from New Jersey, leads the conference in save percentages and goals against average. We have also climbed up to number 6 in the MidAtlantic Regional rankings.
http://www.ncaa.com/rankings/soccer-women/d3/regional_rankings
We are energized and ready to take on the rest of the MAC and continue into post season play!

2012 Mustangs

With our season half way over SU Women's Soccer is 1-1 in the MAC and 7-4 overall. After a solid start to the season we had a rough week losing to then ranked number 6 in the country, Johns Hopkins and regionally ranked Rowan. We bounced back with 2 wins against Catholic and an undefeated Frostburg State. The following week proved to be a tough one for us as well with an overtime loss in the 110th minute to Salisbury off a PK and a loss to defending National Champions Messiah. However, we are off to a solid start for this week and the rest of conference play. Winning 2-1 over Lebanon Valley gave us the spark we need to continue being successful for the rest of our season.
We have accomplished so much this season already! 17 players have tallied points for the Mustangs with a total of 13 players scoring goals! Jamie Matlock was conference Player of the Week our first week of the season and also our first in the MAC. Matlock’s goal against Frostburg was her 9th game winner and 17th career goal.
This year our team is determined to fight for a spot in the NCAA tournament. With a strong schedule and solid conference we are competing with some of the best teams in the country. We are a talented team that believe in ourselves and our ability and will continue working until we meet all of our goals!