The womens soccer club will travel for playoffs in Grand Blanc, Michigan, Nov. 19. Courtesy | Charlie Chen
The womens club soccer team will advance to the playoffs Nov. 19 for the second year in a row.
The games will take place in Grand Blanc, Michigan, featuring many teams Hillsdale has faced this season, including Eastern Michigan University, Michigan State University, and University of Michigan.
“We have the potential to play three games this weekend if we make it to the finals,” said sophomore team captain Sophie Fink.
Going into tournament play, the team looks to have a mid-range seed, Fink said.
“We ended the season with a 6-4 record, which means we’ll be seed four or five,” Fink said. “That is the same as, or potentially better, than last year.”
Last year the team lost in the first round of tournament play, senior captain Brooke Timmerman said.
“Getting to the second round this year would be making history for the team, and winning it all, of course, would be the dream,” she said.
Nevertheless, head coach Ken Koopmans said victories will not come easy, and maximum effort from every player will be necessary.
“It’s going to take everyone because the normal 11 starters will not be enough,” he said. “We usually only take 18 total players to away games, but this time everyone is going, and we’re going to need everyone.”
Timmerman said this will be possible through the team’s deep bench which has been a help in many ways this season.
“We have a lot more talent than in the past, and a deeper bench with very efficient subs, which is so important,” she said.
According to Timmerman, this year, the team chemistry has also affected performance.
“The community of this team is so unique,” she said. “This is not a varsity sport, and these girls are under no obligation to be here. It’s just that they like the sport, and they like each other.”
Koopmans said the captains have played a large role in the team’s coherency.
“Our captains have been a big part of the team chemistry this year. They have gained the respect of their teammates,” he said. “The team sees how organized they are and how much they care about this game, and they really listen to them.”
Moving into this weekend, one of the biggest challenges will be playing and winning the mental game, which has been a focus for the team all season, Timmerman said.
“One of our biggest struggles this season was playing to the physical level of the other team,” she said. “We had to be the ones to set the mental intensity to force them to match our tone throughout the game, so even if we can’t quite win the physical game, we play with their minds, which makes a huge difference.”
Fink agreed that the mental aspect of the game will be extremely important this weekend.
“In all sports, it really is a mental game,” Fink said. “You can lose the physical game, but if you win the mental game you’ll go out of that game learning and knowing how to do better.”
Koopmans said ball possession is a big target for the team going into the weekend.
“We need to win those 50/50 balls,” he said. “If we step into the ball and win it, we need to maintain it. We’ve got to push the ball.”
In preparation for this week’s game, Timmerman and Fink have reviewed previous game film with Koopmans and developed practice drills to target their weak areas, which is something they have done all season, Koopmans said.
“We’ve been recording our games this year, so we can see things about the game that we have not seen before,” he said. “We can look at it and confirm the things we initially thought about the game or see new things. From there we tailor our practices to improve what needs to be improved.”
Fink is confident the team’s competition throughout the season has prepared them to fight hard this weekend.
“It’ll definitely be a hard challenge proving that we can go up against these difficult teams,” Fink said. “I feel like we already proved that we can compete against them. We just have to leave it all out on the field.”
