JANE LEE
Sports Assistant
Having established itself as one of the top collegiate programs in the country over the past fours years, the Pepperdine women’s soccer team begins this season with hopes of a fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance.
With consistency and discipline, along with the creation of more scoring opportunities, eighth-year head coach Tim Ward believes his team can make it.
“It’s all about team chemistry and keeping things in perspective,” Ward said. “All the girls know they need to work hard for one another.”
During the past four years, the team has compiled an overall record of 66-26-10, finished three of those four years ranked in the top 25 and captured the West Coast Conference title in 2002. While playing in one of the top conferences in the country during that time span, Pepperdine also earned the WCC’s third-best overall mark behind perennial national powers Portland and Santa Clara, respectively.
After completing the 2004 regular season seventh in the WCC (1-4-2) with an overall record of 9-7-3, Pepperdine received an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament on the strength of a 7-2-2 start. In a first-round match at UCLA, the team fell 1-0 to the Bruins.
Entering the 2005 campaign, Ward welcomes nine freshmen, as well as the return of 20 letterwinners, including eight starters.
“All the freshmen are talented in different ways,” Ward said of the 2005 recruiting class that Soccer Buzz magazine ranked No. 7 in the West Region. “Our team looks completely different from last season so it should be interesting to see how we progress.
“It’s hard to single out any of the freshmen because they’ve all looked very solid and each player brings something unique to the team.”
It’s the seniors, however, who Ward believes hold the team together.
“Our team goes as our seniors go,” he said. “We have six great seniors this year, and they all keep us together by being positive and playing great on the field.”
The Waves are once again expected to finish near the top of the WCC standings as they were voted to place fourth in the conference by the league’s head coaches. Defending co-champions Portland and Santa Clara garnered the top two spots, respectively and San Diego, which placed third in last year’s standings, was third in balloting.
Pepperdine was victorious in its first two matches, beating CSU Bakersfield in a scrimmage game August 26 and No. 28 Central Florida in its season opener Friday.
“Last year we didn’t get off to a great scoring start,” Ward said. “We changed our system a bit and we’ve already scored a total of five goals in the first two games.
“Our backline will take awhile to progress, but we’ve got a powerful frontline and a strong midfield.”
Pepperdine is led by seniors Megan Woods, Jenna Fodor and Anna Picarelli. Woods, a forward, earned first team All-WCC honors last year after finishing the season with five goals and three assists, while fellow forward Fodor ended with four goals and one assist. Picarelli returns for her senior campaign after totaling 10 shutouts and setting a school-record with a 0.61 goals-against average en route to being named second team All-WCC.
The Waves, who open WCC play with a home match against local rival Loyola Marymount on Oct. 9, will play nine teams that advanced to the 2004 NCAA Tournament during the upcoming season.
The highlights of the team’s 20-match schedule are home matches against 2004 NCAA runner-up UCLA and WCC matches against Portland and Santa Clara.
The Waves also will battle University of Kansas, which reached the second round of last year’s NCAA Tournament, at the San Diego Tournament.
“I like our chances, and I believe we can beat anybody on any given day,” Ward said. “It’s going to be exciting because we’ve got some great teams coming to play us at home.”
08-29-2005
