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Longtime contenders at the NAIA and Division II levels, SEATTLE University is already making their presence known at the highest level of college soccer after just three full seasons in Division I. After a couple of seasons just inside the top half of the final RPI rankings, the Redhawks made another big step forward in 2010. Much as the case was for Seattle’s first two seasons as a fully fledged member of DI, the Redhawks took on an “anyone, anywhere, anytime” attitude as to their scheduling. Except that this season, the Redhawks managed to convince a few of the big boys to make the trip over to play at Seattle for once. Thus, college fans were treated to the rather intriguing sight of Pac-10 sides Washington and Oregon State coming on the road to face the Redhawks on the opening week of the new season.

The Redhawks may have dropped both matches, but the experience against top flight opposition no doubt helped forge the steely resolve that would symbolize the campaign ahead. Seattle would go on to win their next four matches, including a 2-1 win at UC Irvine that looked rather innocuous at the time but which would end up being the Anteaters’ only loss until the Big West Tournament final. A road swing up to Idaho would trip up Seattle as the Redhawks would lose matches to Idaho State and Boise State, but a return home did SU good as the Redhawks were a perfect 5-0-0 on their extended homestand, including a 2-1 win over WAC contender Idaho.

The confluence of Seattle’s success to that point and a set of six matches to close out the year that featured three teams that would finish in the final RPI Top 80 meant that Seattle entered the stretch run of the season with a slight ghost of a chance of grabbing an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament if they ran the table, helped out by an impromptu match they scheduled against Colorado in the middle of that run. Alas, Seattle would fade a bit down the end and only win one of that five match road stretch, ending their very slim hopes. But the Redhawks did manage to draw Baylor and Colorado on the road, showing that this team could play with just about anyone on any given day if on their game.

Seattle’s eleven wins were good enough to help them to their first finish inside the Top 100 in the final RPI rankings at DI level, and the leadership of Head Coach Julie Woodward in Seattle likely ensures that it won’t be the Redhawks’ last finish that high in the rankings. Woodward may be as much a part of Seattle University as any coach/program combo in the country. Don’t believe me? Consider Woodward was an NAIA All-American player with the team before coming back to coach the program into contender status at the NAIA, DII, and now DI level. Woodward’s spot in the Seattle University Athletic Hall of Fame is a well deserved one and the long-serving coach is far from done in the Emerald City, as she tries to spur Seattle U. on to new heights.

2011 will also be a bit of history for Seattle as it’s the last season for the Redhawks among the ranks of the DI Independents. The Redhawks had been linked with possible moves to the West Coast Conference or the Western Athletic Conference in recent years, and a move to the latter finally materialized as the WAC tried to replenish their ranks after being raided by the Mountain West in the latest conference membership shuffle. The move should do wonders for Seattle’s recruiting efforts and overall competitiveness with the long desired goal of an NCAA Tournament berth finally a realistic possibility with a conference home.

But all of that’s a year in the future, and Redhawk legend Woodward will instead just focus on building a squad capable of competing with the likes of Washington State, Portland, Washington, and Texas, all of whom will square off with SU in 2011. The Redhawks got it done mainly with defense and will have to hope to keep a stout rearguard again considering the offenses of some of the teams listed above. The good news is that the only expected loss to the starting defense is that of graduated senior Nance Hill. The defense figures to be led in 2011 by senior Jordan Salisbury, undersized for a center-back at 5’3″ but still a big factor in the Redhawk defense as evidenced by her starting every match for SU last season. Seattle will also have a steady set of hands to rely on in goal with Madison Goverde returning for her senior season after playing all but a half in goal for the Redhawks in 2010.

It’s a little dicier offensively for Seattle going into this season. Talismanic midfielder Kara Kuttler departs after another great season for the Redhawks with four goals and two assists in her senior season. Four goals lost may not sound like much for most teams, but with Seattle something of a light scoring team, every little bit counts. Fortunately for them, they do return just about all of their other offense, including breakout star Emma Levy. After being seldom used at Washington State, Levy transferred out to Seattle and was an immediate hit for the Redhawks with six goals and four assists in her first season with the team. With two years of eligibility left, it’s safe to say that Levy will play a big part in Seattle’s immediate future. Another weapon for Woodward this season could be mountainous midfielder Ava Ames who was strictly a super sub in 2010 but still tied for second on the team in goals with four.

A young, talented, and hungry group of returnees will be joined by some nice firepower from this year’s recruiting class. Megan Daniels, an attacker with no small degree of pace, and Taylor Ritzman, blessed with a great first touch, both come in with some excellent accolades to their name. But the real one to watch may be Sparta United’s Stephanie Verdoia, the 2010-11 Utah Gatorade State Player of the Year. Getting her signature was a real coup for Woodward and the Redhawks and was a real statement of intent from Seattle going forward.

Already getting talented players up to the Emerald City, things should get a fair shade easier in the future with a conference affiliation to their name as the Redhawks jump to the WAC next season. Generally speaking, Seattle’s schedule is far from forgiving this year with plenty of squads that will test the Redhawks’ mettle, but more importantly, Seattle’s first ten matches are away from home. Additionally, the team only plays five matches at home in 2011, a fact that could prove severely testing to Woodward’s side this year. But that kind of adversity tends to build fortitude, and the challenges of this and previous years might go a long way in forging a future league champion in Seattle. Woodward looks like she’s carving out a perennial contender for an NCAA Tournament spot with the Redhawks, and a solid season in 2011 would go a long way in building momentum for their first WAC foray next year.

Could we please find LONGWOOD a conference home? Pretty please? The Lancers have been toiling in DI Independent purgatory for the better part of seven seasons after making the transition up from Division II where Longwood achieved a fair degree of success. While the Lancers haven’t exactly pulled up any trees in DI, they haven’t embarrassed themselves either, with five winning seasons out of seven. A stint in the United Soccer Conference with other vagabonds worked out fairly well for a few years before the league imploded, and Longwood ended up back on their own.

Last season was a fairly typical one for the Lancers, i.e. a winning one. Longwood overwhelmed most of the lesser teams on their schedule and truly flexed their muscle in a matchup with a good Elon team, crushing the Phoenix by a 6-0 margin. Even when Longwood ended up on the wrong end of things, they still held their own most of the time, playing teams like VCU, Richmond, and Wright State hard before falling in defeat. Ultimately, the Lancers ended up with their fourth double digit win season in five years.

Head Coach Todd Dyer has been at the controls for nearly two decades, and it’s safe to say the Longwood alumnus has almost become part of the furniture in Farmville, having steered the program through calmer waters in Division II before the arduous transition to the ranks of Division I. Longwood clearly are not a team to schedule as an automatic win and have proven to be more than a match for similar sized programs in the region. Now it’s just a matter of finding a conference to call home and gain a chance at an elusive NCAA Tournament berth.

Much of the success of the past two seasons have come off the goals of wildly prolific striker Lindsey Ottavio. After a fairly successful 2009 season with three goals and four assists, Ottavio exploded in her second collegiate season for a mouthwatering sixteen goals. With two years left of eligibility, Ottavio looks to be in prime position to make her mark on Longwood’s record book while terrorizing defenses that run up against the Lancers with her blistering pace and workrate from out wide. Though Ottavio casts a long shadow in Farmville, the team also has a couple of complementary players capable of banging them in as well. Kelsey Pardue was a hit in the center of midfield in her freshman season with three goals and seven assists and could develop into a great player over the next three seasons for the Lancers, capable of pulling the strings for the team while also chipping in with goals. The team also got three goals and two assists from Nikki Glisson and will be hoping for improved output in 2011, especially given the loss of creative forward Jessica Varela, a transfer from Virginia Tech, who had three goals and seven assists in her senior season.

More than likely though, most of Head Coach Todd Dyer’s time will be spent in retooling a defense that takes some big losses to graduation. The backline will be missing speedy full-back Kayla Huggins and massive full-back partner Lauren Trizna this year, the latter having been the team’s second leading goal getter last year with four to her name, undoubtedly using her size to her advantage against smaller clubs. The team does get a massive freshman addition though in the form of Beach FC defender Samantha Phillips. With youth national team experience, Phillips is a massive coup for Dyer and the Lancers and could turn into a club great with the right coaching and a little luck.

The Lancers also bid farewell to goalkeeper Marcia Biddle who started every match in goal last season and was capable of some stunning saves in her time with the team. Junior Kyra Byron figures to have the upper hand in winning the vacant spot between the pipes after making ten appearances last year in relief of Biddle. Byron’s strong in the air in dealing with crosses and has great size for the position standing at 5’10″.

Longwood might not have a conference home, but they do have talent, good coaching, and a well run program that has served them well in DI thus far. Expect another winning season in 2011 with continued hopes from many for the Lancers to finally land in a conference, a well deserved reward for their continued success.

In their fourth season of being in the rough and tumble world of being a Division I independent program, CAL STATE BAKERSFIELD might look back on 2010 as something of a mixed bag. On the one hand, the Roadrunners win total was their second lowest in DI, only finishing ahead of 2007′s woeful two win return. On the other hand though, Bakersfield did manage to breach the Top 200 of the final RPI, managing their best finish in that category by a country mile. Of course that might be down to loading the schedule up with a whole lot of viciously tough opponents, but who am I to argue with scheduling methods?

Not to say that Nicole Van Dyke’s team didn’t capture some moderately sized scalps on the way to that Top 200 RPI finish last year. A year after beating San Diego and Cal Poly, Bakersfield took down Saint Mary’s on the road and also managed a draw at San Diego. There were also some rather dreary results such as a draw with Eastern Washington at home and a five match losing streak to end the season. Bakersfield did end up playing eight teams in the final RPI Top 100 though, meaning they were often running up against opposition with much more talent and far bigger coffers than they featured.

The biggest blow that hit the program came in the offseason though. After spurning an invitation from the Great West to join the fledgling league, Bakersfield has made continued overtures towards the California based Big West for potential membership. Unfortunately for the Roadrunners, the league passed UCSB over in favor of bringing in Hawaii in non-football sports for the 2012-13 season, leaving Bakersfield high and dry as an independent. The snub has left some outsiders wondering if the school’s days as a DI program are numbered after seeing their conference affiliation hopes dashed for the moment.

While uncertainty off the pitch reigns, the Roadrunners will try and focus on action on the pitch, hoping to make the long climb to a non-losing season as they enter their fifth year in DI. It could be a bit of an ask though with major losses up and down the team. The biggest loss might be at the top, where Bakersfield were rocked by the March news that Van Dyke, the only coach the team has known since the transition to DI, was leaving to take a vacant assistant post at Stanford. With time of the essence in the Spring, UCSB elevated assistant Melissa Phillips to the top spot in April. While Phillips has familiarity with the program having served as an assistant for two seasons, she’s also perilously young, having just concluded her playing career at DII Cal St. Stanislaus in 2008!

On the pitch, the Roadrunners losses might look acceptable at first glance, with only five seniors departing, but unfortunately for the new boss, all five were major players for Bakersfield last season. The area hardest hit on the pitch is in midfield, where UCSB loses three starters: Sarah Gaskins, Alexandria Ngo, and Faith Perry. The Roadrunners will have to hope such losses don’t gum up the attack too much this year. Sam Pena was leading scorer for the Roadrunners last year, and with two years of eligibility left, Phillips and co. will be hoping for a bigger return in 2011 after six goals in Pena’s sophomore year. Tyler Shirk was also a contributor in her freshman season with three goals and two assists and could grow into a competent sidekick to Pena with a little luck. Overall though, the offense got bogged down a lot last year and will hope that the reasonable defense from last year can overcome the losses of seniors Tara Corcoran and Leanne Tucker. Senior Kym Gause played all but one match in her junior season and will have to lead by example in her final season with the Roadrunners.

Phillips is bringing in eight more recruits to help try and build up the talent level in Bakersfield as the team continues to ease into life as a DI program. But with such uncertainty as to their future in the top division of college athletics, how hard is it going to be to convince players to spend four or five years at Bakersfield, a program that could seemingly drop out of DI at a moment’s notice? It’s an enigmatic problem that faces Phillips as she prepares for 2011. On the pitch though, opponents should be well aware by now that the Roadrunners have the capacity to cause problems for any team foolish enough to take UCSB half-heartedly.

FRANCIS MARION‘s nomadic life as a Division I independent continued to look bleaker as the Patriots put together another three win season after 2009′s disappointing 3-12-1 effort. FMU, a program that just a few years ago could pride itself on having enjoyed back-to-back ten win seasons and cracking the Top 200 in the RPI has now won only twelve combined games over the past three seasons and has dropped like a rock in the RPI in that time period.

It wasn’t always that way for the Patriots who were once a solid team in Division II in the Peach Belt Conference, winning a few trophies and making the NCAA Tournament on a couple of occasions in their lower classification. As the team made a transition do DI, coach Marty Beall had FMU in a position to be somewhat competitive, finishing with a record over .500 in both 2006 and 2007. When Beall left after the 2008 season to take over the High Point program, much of the Patriots’ mojo seemed to leave with him. Joel Person, an assistant on the school’s men’s team, took charge and has struggled to make an impact in two seasons.

2010 started out poorly, with four straight losses before FMU was able to take care of Wofford in a 3-2 thriller. Unfortunately, the Patriots followed that win up by being humiliated by Duke, 9-0, in Durham. Impressively, FMU would keep their heads up and rebound to beat East Tennessee State, 2-1, but would then go on to only win one of their last eleven matches. You could forgive the Patriots for being more than a little road weary after playing two-thirds of their matches away from home. Granted, many of those trips weren’t long distance affairs, playing sides in the Carolinas. But at other times, FMU was hoofing it out to places like Jacksonville or Oklahoma to take beatings. That the Patriots were losing decisively to teams like Charlotte, Oklahoma, and Duke shouldn’t be much to lose sleep over. That FMU dropped matches to schools like North Florida, UNC Asheville, and Presbyterian, however, should be something to worry about.

The Patriots had a undeniable problem in keeping the ball out of the back of the net in 2010, shipping fifty-one goals, fifteenth worst in the nation. FMU managed a grand total of one clean sheet in 2010, in a 4-0 win against South Carolina State towards the end of the season. All too often, the Patriots found themselves carved open by their opposition, conceding at least three goals on eight different occassions, including in crushing 9-0 and 8-0 defeats to Duke and Oklahoma respectively. Most of that unfortunate defense returns for 2011, but the team does lose senior Rebecca Nelson and her two goals and two assists from her senior season.

Also gone is Adrienna Osorio-McKenna, whose four goals was good enough for second best on the Patriots in 2010. Leading scorer Kiley Williams does come back for her senior year after three goals an six assists last year, as does the five goals of Yasmin Bunter who had a fine first year over from Fleet, England. With a defense as leaky as FMU’s was last year, the Patriots need all the goals they can get from their own players, meaning Williams and Bunter may have to come up large if the minnows are to make any type of run at respectability in 2011. More worrying is what looks like a relative lack of reinforcements coming through the doors this season. The Patriots need an infusion of talent badly, but it looks like most of last season’s campaigners will be asked to make a sudden breakthrough if FMU are to make significant improvements this season.

Person may have inherited a program that was already exhibiting the early signs of decline in 2009, but positive strides have not been evident in the first two years of his leadership of the team. While nobody’s going to confuse Francis Marion with any of the giants of the region, Beall showed that it is possible to at least be able to do battle with the smaller clubs around the Carolinas. That should be the guide post for Person and his bunch over the next few years as they try to gauge progress. In all likelihood though, it’s still a long, winding road to respectability and the Patriots may not add too many more wins to last season’s total of three.

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