The Trojans have officially begun conference play, showing their focus and commitment to winning a bid for the NAIA tournament.
Taylor’s women’s soccer team started and ended their nonconference play with a victory. Their out-of-conference slate started on Aug. 17 with a 5-0 win against Concordia and ended on Sept. 19 when they defeated Georgetown 4-0.
After their first eight games, the Trojans sit with a 5-1-2 record. They are coming into the heart of the season with a forceful offense and an indestructible defense that has outscored their nonconference opponents 21-3.
Sophomore forward Kiana Siefert said the Trojans’ stacked early season lineup has prepared them with a determined mindset for the back half of the season.
“We’re working 100% in the first half, not just in the second half, and just really pulling through when it gets hard to make sure that those conference games end with wins,” Siefert said.
This mindset took effect as Taylor defeated St. Francis (Ind.) 5-1 on Sept. 23rd for their first game of Crossroads League play.
Freshman Eliza Luttrell and junior Lauren Collins ended the game with one assist and one goal each. Freshman Leah McQuade, senior Chloe Sena and junior Audrey Grimm collected the rest of the goals for the night.
By the end of the game, Taylor finished with season-highs of five goals on 37 shots, 22 of which found their way on-target.
Taylor ended the 2022 season with a conference record of 4-3-2 and went to the NAIA National Tournament where they fell to Columbia (MO) in the first round.
“(The forwards’) perspective is when you get to conference, you get less shots,” head coach Scott Stan said. “The teams are better, so you really need to focus on putting (the ball) away. The midfielders (are) working on passing and dribbling skills, keeping the team connected. The defense (is working) on staying compact, because it’s hard to get through a bunch of people instead of being spread out and open.”
The team is working piece by piece to build a stronger dynamic for conference play. Stan explained that the players are honing in on specific skills based on their positions to better the team as a whole.
“There are different goals, and then we bring it together and work on things that make them do all of those as a unit,” Stan said.
At the beginning of the season, each player wrote their personal goals for the season on index cards. Stan flipped through those cards naming a few of those goals such as staying consistent, not peaking at the beginning of the season, fostering a healthy team dynamic and staying confident.
However, junior forward Audrey Grimm summed up the most common goal set by the team.
“We went through team goals at the beginning of this year and one of the goals that we highlighted, for specifically conference, was finishing top three which would put us in a good spot to get to the national tournament,” Grimm said.
Siefert, Stan and Grimm all mentioned they were looking forward to their games against Marian and Spring Arbor. While these will be the most competitive games of the conference season for Taylor, the team is excited to show what they have prepared for.
Marian is ranked No. 4 in the conference with a 7-1-1 overall record on the season. Their only loss was their first conference game against No. 11 Indiana Wesleyan.
Spring Arbor is ranked No. 2 in the conference with a record of 8-0 overall. They recently won their first conference match against Bethel (IN) by a score of 4-1.
The Trojans will look to continue their conference success at home against Mount Vernon Nazarene University on Saturday, Oct. 7 at 7 p.m.
