By Ryan Barnhart (@ryan_barnhart ):
Consistency and success have been bright spots for the Spartan’s women’s soccer team over the past few seasons.
Ever since Lauren Hanson took over as head coach in 2014, the team has seen a steady increase in both performance and record year after year. SJSU would play some of its best soccer in 2015, when the Spartans would finish second in the Mountain West and go on to win their first tournament championship in the conference.
Despite landing in second place in the conference in 2016 season, the season could be looked upon as a bit of a letdown thanks in part to a semi final tournament knockout by San Diego State.
“We were really ticking toward the end of the season and unfortunately, with injuries and everything else, we had a huge mental and emotional challenge toward the end,” Hanson said. “We didn’t win, but … the way we were playing is the way we want to play like here at San Jose State, which is a positive for our program.”
There’s no doubt that loss is still fresh on the mind of Hanson and the rest of the squad, and this upcoming season, the team’s sights are firmly set on another championship—and possibly more.
One of the first steps the Spartans will need to take toward another trophy will be to look upon the veterans for scoring.
“We obviously lost Alexis Venegas who was one of our top scorers,” Hanson said. “But on the flip side we returned Didi who’s a top scorer, we returned Darriell who scored a lot of goals for our program in the past.”
With the loss of last season’s seniors, SJSU is losing a combined 31 points on 11 goals and 10 assists from last season.
The good news is that a dearth of the scoring still remains on the team.
Senior forward Dorthe Hoppius was the team’s go-to striker last season, scoring the most goals with eight. She will have some help as well with junior Darriell Franklin, who in her second season placed third on the team in points with three goals and four assists. And then there’s sophomore Kristin Amarikwa. While just entering her second year in college, the defender quickly garnered the attention of coaches with her ability to score and veteran-like presence on the field.
The team will also be looking to the freshmen to help pick up the slack. From the looks of how they have performed early on, it has become apparent that they are more than able to fill into their roles.
“I feel like the benefit of the freshmen coming to this team is that they’re all willing to learn,” Franklin said. “Our coaches have put us in a lot of different positions that we’re not used to playing and a lot of the girls have been doing well adapting to that. They’re willing to learn, which has helped our team a lot.”
On the defensive side, the Spartans need to remain as the juggernaut that they were last season. As a team, SJSU allowed the least amount of goals last season at 20 goals in conference in just as many games. This staunch defense is thanks in part to a hard-nosed defensive mindset and great goalkeeping from Paige Simoneau and Ana Calero. Both Simoneau and Calero placed seventh and ninth respectively in the conference in shutouts on last season, with junior Simoneau having the highest shutout per game average of any goalkeeper in the conference.
So just how do the Spartans play so well defensively?
“That goes off of Lauren’s theory,” Hoppius said. “She wants us to always be defensively set and that’s why we started working in the preseason just on defense. We literally worked for three weeks on 2 v 2 defending, 1 v 1 defending and if we get this down we know we’re not going to get scored on so we know we only need one goal to win the game.”
In order to actually win the conference however, the Spartans will have to face some stiff competition in the process.
“This year year the Mountain West is really kind of a mush, a little bit of a mix, a melting pot,” Hanson said. “There’s not really one person or team that stands out this year and so I kind of think it’s up for grabs.”
Rival SDSU and UNLV are both top dogs in the Mountain West, finishing with top records in the conference year after year. Other teams, like Utah State and Boise State, are on the come up, with a legitimate chance of making some noise this season.
Despite challenges they may face, the Spartans will be locked and loaded for another great season. With a plethora of talent on both ends of the field and a great coach calling the shots, there’s no doubt that they finish the year as regular season and tournament champs.