State of the Cyclones: Women’s soccer looks to continue improvement
By Doug Winkey
Even though World Cup fever has officially died down, we return to the discussion of Iowa State women’s soccer in this week’s entry in State of the Cyclones.
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The team had an average season in 2013-2014, going 9-9-2 overall with a a conference mark of 3-4-1. Notable wins came against Oklahoma and Baylor, which ended in scores of 4-1 and 1-0 (OT), respectively. I don’t know much about rivalries in this particular sport, but our Cyclones had the misfortune of losing to Iowa 3-0 in Iowa City.
The results might not be super impressive, but this season was a marked improvement over the 2012-13 season, where they went only 1-7 in conference action. It could be, however, that the women’s soccer team is seeing the same sort of general improvement as many of the other Iowa State teams we have covered in previous entries.
The Cyclones graduate their top two goal scorers in Emily Goldstein and Jennifer Dominguez, but return Koree Willer and Haley Albert as the next two scoring leaders. The overall roster is full to the brim with freshman and sophomores so there is reason to believe that the amount of youth present can help the team reach new heights in 2014-2015.
The single biggest question mark to my untrained eye is the need for a new goalkeeper with the graduation of Maddie Jobe. Senior Andrea Swanson looks to be the obvious next-in-line as the other two keepers on roster are first-year players. Most of America saw how much impact a good keeper can have when watching Tim Howard in Brazil, so let us all root for Swanson to be the next Cyclone stalwart in the net.
I hope that you have enjoyed our latest look at one more of our beloved Cyclone athletic teams. We are slowly marching towards the fall season, so stay tuned to Clones Confidential as we continue to evaluate last season’s performances across the board.