Around this time a year ago, the Edmonds-Woodway girls soccer team began a journey that culminated with a 3A state championship in November.
Often times, having the title of defending state champions brings extra pressure, but Edmonds-Woodway head coach Bill LeCompte doesn’t think that should be the case with this year’s team.
“If there is (extra pressure), I kind of feel like it’s unwarranted,” LeCompte said. “We’ve talked about it as a group and I think that most of them are onboard with the fact that we graduated over half of our starting roster and it’s kind of a whole new team. I think they’re realistic about it and they’re looking at it as, ‘How can we get better?’”
The Warriors graduated eight seniors, four of which are playing some level of college soccer.
But it wasn’t just the graduating seniors the Warriors lost. They will play the 2015 season without star forward Madison Schultz, who was The Herald’s All-Area Girls Soccer Player of the Year last season. Schultz is focusing her efforts on graduating high school early so she can enroll at the University of North Carolina for the school’s second semester and start working out with the Tar Heels’ soccer team.
After a 3-3 start to the 2014 season, Edmonds-Woodway went 17 games without losing, a stretch that included just one tie and 16 wins. Schultz scored 32 goals in that stretch.
“For us, it’s a little bit difficult not to have her because I know the impact she can have on a team,” LeCompte said. “It helps you be a little bit more confident.
“You take one of the state’s leading scorers off the team and it’s kind of one of those things where we’re going to have to figure out how to find some goals,” he added.
At the same time, LeCompte has confidence in this year’s team and knows last year’s state championship wouldn’t have been possible without the surrounding cast.
“Last season, a lot of people wanted to make our season about Madison and the truth is Madison was not our season,” LeCompte said. “Madison is a great team player and she understands where she needs to be in order to do her job, which is put the ball in the back of the net. We kind of looked at it all year as we’re not trying to feed Madison, but if Madison is in the right spot then she gets the ball because for us it’s about team.”
For that reason, LeCompte is looking to his entire team to help make up the goals lost without Schultz.
“I think it’s going to be a bit more spread out,” LeCompte said. “I don’t think it’s necessarily going to be one or two people that are carrying the load night in and night out. I think as we sort stuff out it will be more of a balanced score sheet.”
The Warriors also have a new starting goalkeeper. Sophomore Hannah Hicks takes over for Kiera Towell, who was a first-team All-Wesco 3A South goalkeeper last season.
Like Schultz, Towell, who is playing soccer for the University of Pennsylvania, played a critical role in the Warriors’ championship run last season.
“I think out of the top four teams, we had the best goalkeeper at the state finals,” LeCompte said. “She made some plays that ultimately saved a goal in a couple or three different opportunities where it could have changed the game. That’s something that she grew into as the years went on and that’s why she is where she is now. She’s figured out how to come up big in some critical situations.”
LeCompte hopes Hicks can develop similarly, though he doesn’t want her to feel too much pressure this season.
“I don’t want her to live up to the expectation that she has to be Kiera because Kiera was not the same keeper as a sophomore that she was when she was a senior,” LeCompte said. “I think she needs to continue to play with the confidence that she came in with. She’s definitely approached this season in a different way and has come in looking like she’s been putting in a lot of extra work. I’ve just encouraged her to stay confident in what she does.”
In addition to the losses of Schultz and Towell, the Warriors also graduated second-leading scorer and leading assister Rylee Peterson, as well as midfielders Hailey Hull and Jaclyn Metz.
One of the players expected to step into a more prominent role offensively is senior midfielder and forward Gabby Clark, who was a first-team All-Wesco 3A South midfielder last season.
“This season I feel like I need to step up in more of an attacking goal-scoring position because I’ve always been more of the creating kind of player, but since we’re lacking a lot of the players that would be there on the finishing part of the play I feel like I need to step up and get into part of that role because I know I can,” Clark said.
Sophomore Allison Monroe, who was the only freshman on last year’s team, also returns for the Warriors. Among other things, Monroe has the potential to help in a facilitating role much the way Peterson did a year ago.
“Through my 17 years, I think she’s probably got some of the best vision and best ability to distribute the ball from the midfield that I’ve ever seen,” LeCompte said of Monroe. “She has a tremendous impact on the game, so I’m excited to see how she does.”
Senior defender Ashleigh Fonsen and freshmen Chiara Serafini and Michaela Danyo are also expected to play a key role for the new-look Warriors.
Winning a state championship is tough enough, but repeating is even more difficult. For the players that are back from last year’s championship team, the feeling of winning is a major motivator as the season gets into full swing.
“It just makes us want to go after it even more because we know what (winning a championship) is like,” Clark said. “Once you have a taste of it, you just want to go back and you want to prove that you can get back there. We just have to focus one game at a time before that because it’s hard to focus on the long run and getting there when we need to focus on what’s next right now.”
Aaron Lommers covers prep sports for The Herald. Follow him on Twitter at @aaronlommers and contact him at alommers@heraldnet.com.
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