This past Friday, September 8, the women’s club soccer team played the first game of their season and fell to Saint Ambrose University 3-0.
Although Saint Ambrose is not in our conference, the club normally plays local teams. Despite a losing record to the Saint Ambrose team the club had a positive outlook heading into the game due to adding some new members and doing more conditioning than usual.
Prior to the game, Junior and Treasurer Ashley Grimm said, “it’s usually a very close game [against Saint Ambrose.] I think it’s [the game] going to go really well. We have a really good group of girls this year, and we have a couple of girls that played varsity last year too but decided they weren’t going to play this year.”
According to Grimm one of the biggest factors going into the game was their conditioning. They started practices  during week one and came in prepared to play.
“We usually can’t keep up with them because we don’t have enough subs, but this year I think it’s different,” Grimm said.
The club’s team chemistry was going to be another supporting factor throughout their first game. The club is very close-knit. Grimm says, they value close relationships because it is “more than just soccer.”
Vice President and Junior Natalie Staton said, “I feel like the team this year has pretty good connection. We work really well together just from practices on the field. There’s a lot of good communication.”
Grimm added that since they only lost one senior last year, most of them had previous experience playing with each other.
The clubs chemistry was obvious on the field. With a lot of back and forth they held off Saint Ambrose until two minutes before the second half when they scored their first goal.
“We just couldn’t get anything in the back of the net unfortunately,” said Grimm.
With a goalie change from Augustana at the start of the first half, Saint Ambrose came on strong with two more goals, but with an injury they had to put their starting goalie back in. For the rest of the game, the ball went back and forth with no goals.
“It was a really good first game. We were working together as a very cohesive unit. Our team in general just hits it off and you can tell when we play, even if we don’t win. There were a lot of good things happening on the field,” Staton said.
Grimm added “Overall, I think it was a good game. Our chemistry was there and everyone had fun. This club was created for people who want to play soccer but just can’t at the varsity level.”