Women's soccer improves record

Tech's women's soccer club has overcome multiple obstacles over the past few years to perform successfully against rival teams and has steadily improved their record.

"It's really a bigger accomplishment with a smaller school who don't really have a lot of women that we can form a team and really beat these huge state schools, so that's pretty special and has always been a challenge for us," said Kristina Alemany, team president and Aerospace Engineering grad student.

Last weekend, the soccer team finished second overall in a regional tournament. After losing by one goal to Tennessee and tying Virginia, the Jackets bounced back to beat Florida and Virginia. Despite losing in the final match-up against Virginia Tech, the team has much to celebrate. This marks only the second winning season in the past five years and the highest finish in the regional tourney.

"At the beginning of the season, you could kind of tell that we weren't working together as a team as well as we should've been and it was more of a group of individual players. I think that just with so many new players that it takes so much time to build the team dynamic and our coach has done a great job.

At the regional, we really played totally flawlessly as a team with everyone really supporting each other. There really was not one individual player on that team; it was really just a team effort; it was really just spectacular to watch," Alemany said.

The leading scorer, with six goals, is Linnea Ignatius, a third-year International Affairs Modern Languages major and newly added member to the team. In total, the Jackets have scored 26 goals for the season improving their record to 8-4-2.

"We've gotten a lot of new players this year who have contributed tremendously... We've had some veterans who've been on the team for a long time and can provide good leadership and who have been through this for so many years and can set a good example to some of the younger players. The group of freshmen and new players that we have this year are just tremendous. It's just amazing how much they have been contributing to the team in terms of scoring goals, in terms of playing great defense and playing good soccer overall," Alemany said.

One shining spot for the Jackets has been the play of their goalie, Kate Salome, a fourth-year Earth and Atmospheric Science major. The Jackets have allowed three or more goals in only two games this season. The Jackets proudly defeated rival UGA 3-1 last month. Erica Yanez contributed a goal and Allison Hutchings contributed two goals in the head-to-head match-up.

"Beating UGA was really a big accomplishment since we haven't beaten them in the past four years. It made us feel like how good our team was and how much we could accomplish," Alemany saud.

Another obstacle the soccer team has faced is the injury to the veteran defense player Meg Gough. The Jackets have picked up Chris Flaherty and Lauren Hawkins have stepped in to fill the gap on defense. The Jackets play against UNC Charlotte at noon and Middle Tennessee State at 6:15 p.m. tomorrow at Piedmont Park and Tolleson Park respectively.