The Ashland University women’s soccer team wrapped up their fall season as Great Midwest Athletic Conference (G-MAC) champions, falling fell short in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
The team found numerous successes in their 2024 campaign, such as: head coach Cayleb Paulino earning 2024 head coach of the year, Dani Hicks earning offensive player of the year, and Merrik Mihalek earning defensive player of the year.
Sophomore midfielder Haley Hightower spoke about her team’s successes this past season. “This past fall season I am most proud of our team’s dedication and commitment to our principles and standards. Specifically, I was super pleased with our team’s commitment to training hard in the off season and showing up in the Fall ready to work. On day one we came out and ran our fitness testing and saw lots of improved scores compared to the previous fall.”
The Eagles then went to work in the off season, just like they did before the fall season.
“In the off season right now we are training on the field and in the weight room consistently. We are currently preparing for our spring games and growing as a team each time, we train,” Hightower said.
This spring, the Eagles will play against four Division I teams and one Division II team, all being out of conference. The team’s schedule includes the following: Bowling Green University, Dayton University, Point Park University, Kent State University and Youngstown State University.
Paulino looks at the challenge from a preparation perspective, “no better way to prepare for the fall than to play a difficult schedule in the spring. It allows us to focus on areas our current roster can get better at before we report back in the fall.”
Hightower also looks forward to the season for similar reasons so the team can build off of last season’s success.
“This spring season I am most looking forward to playing our spring games and facing some challenging competition like Dayton and Bowling Green. It will be great preparation for the fall season to play bigger schools and it will a good learning experience to see what areas our team needs to grow in.”
This schedule will also allow the team to prepare themselves for the fall season with a very different roster from last season.
“This spring has presented new opportunities for the current make up of our roster,” said Coach Paulino. “After graduating 14 players from the fall, many who were four-year contributors to our program, you are starting to see new players step into roles that many of our seniors had filled.”
Hightower has also noticed the shift in leadership, but says that doesn’t change their expectations, “Losing 14 seniors in the fall is definitely a big change for us… but our goals and standards remain the same, if not higher. We now have some areas of leadership that we need to grow into as individual players and as a team collectively. Our 14 seniors were great role models on and off the field, but now it is on us current players to step up!”
The Eagle women’s soccer team will start their spring season at Bowling Green University on Saturday, March 22. Their spring schedule is posted on the team’s Instagram @ashlandwomenssocer.
