Women's Soccer Predicted to Defend their GPAC Title in 2024
Note to media: For more information, contact David Loomis, assistant sports information director, at david.loomis@hastings.edu.
(Hastings, Nebraska) – Coming off a memorable 2023 season that featured a 16-3-3 overall record and a GPAC Regular Season Championship, the Hastings women's soccer team came into the first full week of practice full steam ahead. The GPAC announced that the Broncos were picked to win the conference title again this year, full results can be found here.
"Straight away we've had great energy. Everyone came in super fit," Head Coach Jade Ovendale said. "The freshmen have been a great addition to the team. It looks like they've already been here for nearly a whole season, that's how well they've been implemented into the squad."
Sophomore midfielder Keyah Hahn made it clear that the team still has championship-level expectations, trying to exceed their conference title from last season.
"I see that we have a really strong team and especially this year I feel like we're going to have a really great season. I would say that our ceiling is going to be winning a national championship, nothing lower than that," Hahn said. "I would say the most pleasant surprise is that our freshmen class has been strong. Even during our fitness tests, they all really showed up and at the first day of practice they were all ready to go straight off the bat and that was great."
In preparation for her final year, super-senior Dekota Schubert emphasized the leadership expectations that she is embracing.
"I would say that my expectations are just to hold everybody to the standard. This is going to be my fifth year so I know what the standards are and what they need to be. If anyone is not following those standards, I will say something, I'll push it, and want to make sure that we're at our best," Schubert said. "As a team we really focused on running and lifting weights trying to push ourselves. If you don't work out in the summer you can lose everything you gained in the spring. You want to come in the fall as strong as possible," Schubert said.
Ovendale echoed a similar message, adding that the team has learned to embrace the expectation of winning: "I think that at Hastings the expectation is always to compete for a conference championship so that has just been inherited by each team that's come through. I think what will help us is that we have experience playing in big games and big moments. There's a lot of pressure sometimes in those moments and we have a great core that is returning, so that'll help deal with the pressure in those types of games. For us it's about being better every single practice, every single game. What we did last year, that was great. But can we continue and push and improve ourselves to be even better? That's always the goal for our program."
Junior defender Michaela Fox, who said a goal of hers is to earn First Team All-Conference after receiving Second Team honors last year, is focused on getting the team past the postseason games that they fell short in a year ago.
"As a team, obviously we had a really good season last year, winning the conference. Kind of fell short in the tournament in terms of the GPAC Tournament. I think the next step is securing both of those together. We made it to the Sweet 16 at Nationals so we want to make sure we go further and win that game this year," Fox said.
The Broncos begin their title quest on Saturday, Aug. 24 against Graceland University.
"Obviously because we're the women's soccer team, we're going to win. We haven't played Graceland since I've been at Hastings so this is going to be a new team for me. It's going to be a little different (being) out of conference, but I'm confident that we have what it takes especially after having such a great preseason," Fox said.
The non-conference matchup will take place at 5:30pm on Aug. 24 at Lloyd Wilson Field.
Hastings College is a four-year residential college that focuses on student academic and extracurricular achievement. Discover more at hastings.edu.
