Coming into the 2019 season the UNK women’s soccer team has their goals set high. After steadily improving from year one to year two under Chloe Roberts, a trip to the MIAA tournament for the first time in four years may not be out of reach.
“Our expectation is always to make the MIAA tournament, that’s what we want to do and that’s what we have a team goal of, said Head Coach Chloe Roberts.”
Looking back at the 2018 season UNK’s record of 5-12-1 and 3-7-1 in the MIAA was very deceiving. Nine of their twelve losses came by a margin of one or two goals.
“Last season we lost seven games by one goal.” This year we are working on fixing that and trying to win games by one, two and possibly three goals. If we score goals and have clean sheets, we should be successful this year,” Roberts said.
To put it in perspective on how close UNK was to the top opponents in the MIAA, all you must do is look at their records against three of the top four teams in the conference. They lost twice to Fort Hays State by one goal, once to Emporia State by a goal, and then fell to Central Missouri by a score of 2-0. You flip those scores alone around and UNK has a very different season.
After losing so many close games the Lopers know coming into the 2019 season they can’t prepare lightly for anybody on their schedule.
“I don’t see an easy game in the MIAA. Central Oklahoma won our conference last year and Central Missouri was National Champions a year prior. Each game we have to go in there and prepare the same way we always do which is competitive, be positive, be ready to play that opponent and take it one game at a time,” Roberts said.
One strength the Lopers look to have this season is more depth overall as a team with a bigger roster than in years past.
“We have strengths all over the field ranging from goalkeeper to forward so it’s very exciting. We also have a lot bigger roster size which means we can rest more people and give them fewer minutes to save them for another game if we have too. It’s also important to note playing time will be based by performance and who fits well against the team we’re playing,” Roberts said.
Captains for this year’s team are Molly Willis and Allie Prososki both of Kearney. Willis is in the top 10 all-time on UNK minutes played list and both players have been selected to the all MIAA player team once throughout their career.
The official start to the soccer season for the Lopers is September 6 in the UNK Fall Classic. They will play MSU-Moorhead at 5 p.m.
