Grinnell College women’s soccer comes up short in injury-riddled season

Grinnell women’s soccer fell one step shy of the Midwest Conference (MWC) final, following a dramatic 1-0 loss at Lake Forest College after battling through a season of recurring injuries and leaning on a promising young core. Still, members of the team expressed optimism for the next season, citing the versatility of first years and a strong defensive year.

Despite the undesired outcome, Coach Kirsten Koester, known as Coach K to the team, praised Grinnell’s performance in the semifinal. “The game against Lake Forest was some of the best soccer we played all year,” said Koester. “We were focused, we were disciplined, we added new things going into that game and the buy-in to the game plan and the execution of the game plan were excellent.”

Grinnell came into the game as an underdog against a 16-0 Lake Forest team, to whom they suffered a 3-0 loss earlier during the regular season. “That probably fueled us — a little chip on our shoulder from losing to them previously,so we went into it with a fighting mindset,” said center back Zoe Kunzman `28. “Even though they scored in the first half, we never let up.”

Center back Sarah Travis `27 told The S&B that injuries also played a significant part in the match’s outcome as the Pioneers had to play the majority of the season without forward Maya Mozena `28, defender Ella Hunt `26 and Hollye Anne Brinkley `29 who plays as both defender and winger. Travis’ defensive partner, Kunzman, played the full 90-minute match with a fractured rib. “In that game specifically, it was just a game of how much pain can you push past,” said Travis. “If the team was wholly uninjured, it might have been a different game, but I’m still so incredibly proud of the performance that we put out that day.”

According to Koester, strong defensive play was pivotal throughout the season. The Pioneers only conceded one total goal across their six wins. “I try really hard to look at the strengths of our team overall and adapt our style of play to how we’re going to stop other teams from scoring goals,” said Koester. “We like to thwart their plans, we like to take something away from them, make them adapt, and be vigilantes a little bit from a defensive standpoint.”

Reflecting on the defensive players, Koester praised the performance of goalkeepers Peyton Dixon `27, who had nine saves in the semifinal, and Grayson Allison `28. She further mentioned Haylie Wesley `29, who played as an outside back throughout the season. Wesley faced Lake Forest’s MWC Newcomer of the Season in the match, which Koester described as a “really exciting and a great performance.”

At the core of the defense was the partnership between center backs Travis and Kunzman, the two having played the full 18 games of the season, and Kunzman being substituted only once. The two each scored game-deciding goals, with Travis scoring the game winner against the University of Wisconsin and Whitewater and Kunzman tying the game against Coe College.

Despite traditionally playing as a left back, Kunzman adapted to the center back position after injuries forced Koester to shift her there. “Zoe had a breakthrough season this year,” said Koester. “It was a very easy adjustment to trust her in the center back position, even though it’s not where she’s used to playing, because Zoe’s a team-first player who’s willing to do what the team needs and what’s in the best interest of the team.”

Travis said her partnership with Kunzman clicked the moment Koester paired them at the heart of the defense. She said that Kunzman’s aggressive, front-foot style lets her jump into early tackles, which compliments well with her own preferred style of play to sit a few yards deeper, ready to sweep up anything that slips through. “We kind of instantly fell into this X formation, which is when one person steps and the other drops,” Travis said.

Koester, Kunzman and Travis all said that one of the biggest challenges this season was adapting the play with a younger team as seven seniors from last season were replaced with eight first years.

“It was hard at first, because you have to get used to playing with new players, and I think for a lot of the returners it’s hard to get out of the habits you had with the people you’d created a bond with last season,” said Kunzman.

Midfielder Teya Lochridge `29 was one of the new arrivals who finished the season having scored two goals, one of them the winning shot against Westminster College.

Lochridge, who grew up in Missoula, Mont. in a family where soccer is a tradition, said the transition to Grinnell felt right from her very first visit. “I came here, and I immediately fell in love with the team,” she said. “They were so nice, they were so welcoming, and you could just feel that I would fit in … there was no period of awkwardness.”

Adapting on the field, however, was more complicated. “The way I played at home was very passing around people, switching it from side to side, and we also had really, really fast wingers,” Lochridge said. “When I came to Grinnell, it was different,” describing an early-season approach that was more direct and defensive than the style she was used to.

By the end of the season, Kunzman, Travis and Lochridge all felt more comfortable playing together. “As the year went on, we started playing the ball on the ground, we were passing it around, and by the end it was just so much smoother. We were playing better soccer all together,” Lochridge said.

Lochridge remembers the home victory against Westminster as the best moment of the season, not only because she scored her first goal, a power shot from outside the penalty box, but because of the great home atmosphere. A matcha-serving event brought a lot of spectators to the pitch that energized the team. Kunzman and Travis also enjoyed playing that day. “I had never seen a crowd like that at Grinnell,” said Kunzman. “It was really fun to play in front of a lot of people.”

With a young and better connected team, Grinnell sets its expectations towards reaching the nationals. “Next season, I think the expectation is we’re gonna win,” said Travis. “We’re very confident that if next season we have this fire to win, we’ll hopefully win. Knock on wood.”