As the summer faded away and the average Hopkins student started saying their goodbyes to hometown friends, the women’s soccer team was hard at work preparing for what they hope to be a dominant season. After just three weeks, the Lady Jays have won five straight games and propelled themselves to become the number two ranked team in the country.
It is shaping up to be a fantastic start to the season, as they currently stand at 5-0.
Their most recent big wins happened last weekend at the Double Tree Tartan Cup in Pittsburgh, PA, where they took down Allegheny and Carnegie Mellon.
After losing only two seniors last year and adding 13 new freshmen, the team has more depth than ever.
“Having a large team is a positive because we’ve added a lot of depth to our team,” sophomore goalie Sarah Bennett said. “The level of our game is very high and when new players come into the game, our level stays the same or even increases. Our freshmen have really proved that they belong on this Hopkins team.”
With one of the largest teams in program history, Hopkins marched into Pittsburgh confident and ready to play.
The Double Tree Tartan Cup started off with Hopkins against Allegheny. With a 27th minute goal by junior Sydney Teng, the team took an early lead. Early in the second half, senior Kelly Baker netted her second goal of the season to give Hopkins a 2-0 advantage.
However, Allegheny proved their resilience by quickly cutting the lead to one in the 65th minute, but could not score an equalizer before time expired.
Coming off of a huge win against Messiah, the girls felt that this game proved that they were legitimate contenders to make a deep postseason run.
“The Allegheny game was especially important because it was right after the Messiah game,” Bennett said. “It proved that our win against Messiah was not a fluke.”
In the final game of the weekend, Hopkins had another test against Carnegie Mellon, a team ranked higher than them nationally.
After a rough start, Hopkins found themselves in a 2-0 hole early in the game. With their backs against the wall, junior Hannah Kronick and senior Christina Convey scored back to back goals to tie the game before halftime.
After being awarded a penalty shot in the second half, Hopkins senior Pamela Vranis was given a chance to put her team on top for the first time in the game. She fired a shot past the outstretched hand of the Carnegie Mellon goalkeeper to give Hopkins a 3-2 advantage.
Vranis’s strike proved to be enough to give the Lady Jays their second win of the weekend as well as their second win against a top five ranked opponent in one week.
When asked about such important wins, Benett proudly commented that they were more than just a tally in the win column.
“They say a lot about the character of our team and our work ethic,” Bennett said. “It shows that we are a physically and mentally strong team, which will be very important as we head down the road to a national championship.”
As of Tuesday afternoon, Hopkins has worked their way to a number two ranking in the country, something the team is very proud of.
The girls plan on staying on top of their game and make sure they continue to work hard in the future as they continue to accomplish their long-term goals as a team. Even with their early season success, they are fully aware that the journey has just begun.
“Our plan for the next couple weeks is to just keep working hard and to take care of our bodies,” Bennett said. “We’ll go into practice focused and ready to play. It’s a really exciting start to the season for us and our goal is to take one game at a time because the most important game is the next one.”
Hopkins will face off against Washington College this coming Saturday, Sept. 14 at Homewood Field, looking to keep their perfect record intact.
