The women’s soccer team ended its season on a high note this past Saturday, picking up a 4-1 victory over Dartmouth on senior day.
“I thought everyone played really hard and had high intensity for all 90 minutes,” said senior midfielder Dana Daniels. “I also thought we defended and attacked as a team a lot better in this game compared to previous games.”
The game featured a number of highlights. Senior defender Kailey Joyce scored her first ever collegiate goal in the third minute, freshman forward Kennedy Yearby scored her second goal of the season to end her strong rookie season, freshman midfielder Karli Berry scored her first collegiate goal and freshman goalkeeper Chrissy Mayer played in her first game.
The Red finished with four goals against a Dartmouth defense that had only given up 11 goals all season.
“I thought the way we played during the Dartmouth game illustrated everything that we have been working on as a team throughout the season,” Berry said. “It was the culmination of all our hard work that we have put into every practice and every game.”
Head coach Patrick Farmer has emphasized the importance of improving the team’s passing throughout the season and that goal seemed to materialize in this game. In Saturday’s game, that team-first mentality was on display, according to Berry.
“We defended as a team and we attacked as a team,” Berry said. “It is important to have confidence in yourself, but when you have confidence in every single one of your teammates? That’s how you win games.”
The senior day festivities started before the game. Each senior, accompanied by family members, walked out onto the field one at a time where she met with an underclassmen who presented her with flowers. In addition to this ritual, the team’s freshman class and other underclassmen made posters, wrote poems and gave the seniors gifts out of gratitude for their support.
“They welcomed us all in with such open arms and pushed us as players to be the best we could possibly be,” Berry said of the senior class. “It was an emotional yet proud day for the seniors, their family and our team as a whole.”
Although the Red (5-9-2, 2-4-1) would have liked to finish the season with a winning record and a better Ivy League finish — the team finished seventh — the Red played a very tough schedule and improved its play significantly over the course of the season, according to Daniels.
“I am very satisfied with the team’s performance,” Daniels said. “Coach Farmer had told us this would be the hardest season that the team has faced since he got his position, and I think we handled it very well.”
The Red scored just four goals in its first 12 games but then went on to score seven in its last four contests.
“All teams go through ups and downs during the season and we sure had our fair share, but I think the team did really well handling a tough season,” Daniels said.
Berry said the team’s ability to bounce back even after tough losses shows how resilient the women are.
“I think what speaks a lot about our character as a team is how we responded to those [low points], which is perfectly illustrated in the Dartmouth game,” Berry added. “We just came off a pretty big loss against Princeton, but rather than letting that impact us negatively, we rallied together as a team and played the way we knew we could all season long.”