The team’s record breaking season ends with a 2-0 loss to Michigan in the Sweet 16, before watching the title go to a WCC foe.
By Jeremy Tammaro
Sports Assistant
It was cold. It hurt. It was a feeling none of the Pepperdine women’s soccer team was used to.
And then there was the weather.
The Pepperdine women’s soccer season came to a close against the University of Michigan Wolverines in the Sweet 16 of the Women’s College Cup, snowed under by a score of 2-0. The third-seeded Waves ended their season in snowy Ann Arbor, Mich., 2,260 miles away from the warmth of the sun, the support of their fans, and the comfort of home field advantage, a significant factor in post-season play.
“The overall level of play was great,” Waves Head Coach Tim Ward said, “but it is not easy to travel back-to-back weeks in cold weather.”
Not that any excuses need to be made, but three different times zones in four days can take a toll on a team that feeds off energy and heat.
“It was freezing,” freshman forward Megan Woods said. “The traveling wore us out a little bit. People started to feel a little sick.”
Traveling in post-season play is supposed to be unique, but leaving 80-degree practice weather for matches in the snow proved too much of an adjustment for the Waves.
“Some of the girls had never even seen snow before,” senior midfielder Tasha Spangler said. “Playing in the snow was unreal for us.”
It certainly did not appear to be a factor in the Waves’ first round match against the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Panthers. The flurries began late in the first half, almost a foreshadow of things to come. The Waves won the match 2-0 on a pair of goals from Woods.
Woods’ first goal came in the 44th minute as she took a pass from freshman forward Jenna Fodor and stuck the ball in the back of the net from six yards out. Junior defender Mary Stuart also recorded an assist on the play.
Woods’ second goal came in the 88th minute of the match as Fodor once again fed her the ball. Woods broke away from the pack at the 40-yard marker and fired a bullet from 15 yards out, tying her for second place on the team with nine goals for the season.
“I was just happy to be out there playing,” Woods said. “I know a lot of my personal performance has to do with what the rest of the team does.”
The victory placed the Waves in the second round against the University of Wisconsin Badgers. The ground was free from snow, but the crisp air was a chilling reminder that they were not going to run away with the match.
The Badgers struck first and early, finding the back of the net just 13 minutes into the match. Badgers senior forward Jessica Wolff took a pass from junior midfielder Jenny Kundert and scored from 18 yards out to give Wisconsin the 1-0 edge.
The one goal lead lasted 70 minutes as the Badgers senior goalkeeper Kelley Conway was able to hold the Waves offense in check.
With just over eight minutes remaining in the contest Waves junior forward Lacey Ubaldi took a pass from Woods and beat Conway from 12 yards out to tie the match and send the game into overtime.
With only 18 seconds left in the first extra session, Fodor found herself in the right place at the right time as she found a loose ball in front of the goal and tapped it in. Spangler got credited with an assist on the play.
“I just kind of got in the way of the ball,” Fodor said.
However she scored the goal, she certainly set off a frenzied celebration as she turned to find her 22 teammates bearing down on her.
“The match was a battle,” Spangler said. “Coming out with a win was very exciting.”
But traveling back home, training for two days, and turning around three days later to head off to Michigan was very tiring.
“I didn’t recognize the effects (of the traveling) until after it was all over,” Ward said. “We felt we were going to go out to Michigan and win.”
Wolverines are known for their ability to thrive in freezing conditions, so it was not going to be an easy task for Pepperdine to overtake them on their turf. The Waves made the trip, played their hearts out, and walked away for only the second time on the season hanging their heads. As the final seconds began to tick away, the bitter tears began to swell up and fall.
“It was a tough loss knowing we had gone so far, knowing the potential we had,” Spangler said. “We knew what we had accomplished and that we had exceeded our moment.”
The program’s best season had finally come to an end.
“We played well, but we didn’t play great,” Ward said. “We didn’t have that usual spark.”
The same usual spark that beat the defending national champion Santa Clara Broncos 1-0 back in October? Or was it the same usual spark that defeated this year’s eventual national champion Portland Pilots 2-0 in Portland’s own back yard?
Maybe Ward is referring to that spark that his players carried with them throughout the season, that bounce that says we came to play, and we are not going away quietly.
In the end, the Waves were just not the better team for a change, a feeling that took some getting used to for several of the girls.
“We had such high hopes because we were doing things this year that we never done in the past,” Fodor said.
The championship game turned out to be an all West Coast Conference final, with Portland defeating Santa Clara 2-1 in double overtime. Pepperdine won against each team in the regular season.
“It was really weird knowing we had beaten both teams,” Spangler said. “I could totally see ourselves on television, if not in the championship (match), then in the Final Four.”
With the final match, the Waves finished their stellar season with one of the best records in the nation at 18-2-2. Eight women played their last collegiate soccer match for the Waves in the frozen tundra in Michigan, and as they step aside, a new group of leadership assumes its role.
“Last year we had awesome leadership that we lost,” Ward said, “so the question mark going in to this season was the leadership, and the senior class was just impeccable, just awesome. It’s scary to lose such a great class, but we have a great deal of faith in those returning.”
A great deal of faith and some great expectations to live up to. It should make for one heck of a fun and memorable season.
January 16, 2003