Season preview

Raiders Bring in 18 Recruits in Rebuilding Effort

Blake Wieking returns for his second season, making him the first women’s soccer coach since 2006 to return for a second consecutive season. Last season, Wieking’s squad went 3-13-1 overall and finished tenth in the GPAC with a 3-8-1 record.

Wieking has his eye on improvement, though, as Northwestern returns two All-GPAC honorable mentions (Sarah Seeger and Stephanie Wilcox), nine players that started nine games or more last season, and added a program record 18 recruits.

Wieking believes the schedule, this season, is a good mix of teams that will challenge them and teams that are equal to the Red Raiders. Northwestern will face Ashford and Cardinal Stritch at the Pizza Ranch Classic in Orange City to open their season and then will travel to Jamestown, N.D. to take on Upper Iowa and Jamestown over Labor Day Weekend. The Raiders will take on Buena Vista and Bellevue to wrap up their non-conference schedule before starting the GPAC schedule.

Leading the 2010 Red Raiders will be captains and seniors Katy Phillips, Sarah Seeger and Stephanie Wilcox. Seeger and Wilcox will anchor the defense, and they will be combined with Breanne Schoby and Linden Figgie to form a very experienced defense. Those four defenders were four of the five Raiders to start every game last season. “We have good depth at defender with Seeger, Wilcox, Schoby, and Figgie back. We also have some freshman that will allow us the chance to use more players to keep everyone fresh on defense,” said Blake Wieking.

Defending the goal behind the defense will be Caitlin Shaw, Ariel Watts, and Wendy Hofmeyer, who returns after being a nine game starter at GK in 2008. “Wendy will provide us good leadership and experience but all three will get time during our non-conference schedule to find the best fit,” said Wieking.

In the midfield, Phillips and Annaliese Frye return for their senior seasons. “Our seniors will be joined by some very good freshmen who will be able to step in and do good things for us,” said Wieking. “We will be able to use depth to challenge each other in practice and keep girls fresh during our games.” Frye and Phillips combined to score five of the teams eight goals and will be counted on to be in the middle of the offense.

The forward position will see the most turnover. “Our whole frontline will basically be freshmen/sophomores,” said Wieking. Wieking hopes the forwards position can boost an offense that scored eight times in 17 games last season. “We have very athletic girls who are fast and strong and have great shots on goal.”

The Raiders were picked to finish 11^th this season and Wieking is looking forward to being the underdog. “Other teams in our conference don’t have high expectations for us, which will allow us to surprise some teams. Our goals focus on things we control. We want to be a more aggressive team, win more 50/50 balls, attack the goal, record more shots in games, and have more shut outs as a defense,” said Wieking.