WWU women’s soccer confident entering Final Four

Western Washington University’s women’s soccer team has advanced to the NCAA Division II Final Four for the second time in school history and will face the back-to-back defending champion Grand Valley State at noon Thursday, Dec. 3, in Pensacola, Fla.

“Things have been fantastic,” WWU coach Travis Connell said in a phone interview. “We got down here on Monday and have been getting used to the surface and the humidity.”

With a few days in Florida to prepare for the semifinal, the Vikings have been also doing outreach with a P.E. class at L.D. McArthur Elementary School, Connell said.

The competition will be difficult. Western is ranked No. 2 in the latest NSCAA NCAA Division II national poll and Grand Valley is No. 1.

“Every team here is a quality team now but we were matched up well with Grand Valley,” Connell said, confident of his team.

“Whenever you play any team, you try to find what they want to do and disrupt that,” he said. “They like to have control of the ball and we are going to try and take that away from them with pressure defense and make them defend, which they don’t have to do a lot.”

The Vikings, 21-1-1, have had a record-breaking season. They claimed the West Region Championship for the second time in program history, following the 2013 team.

Many of the nine seniors have ridden a wave of victory that Western’s women’s soccer has never seen before.

Catherine Miles has played 90 games in her career at Western, holding first place in Western’s record books for most matches played. Stephanie Hamilton at 87 games and Delanee Nilles at 86 games hold the second and third places.

The Vikings are on a 20-game unbeaten streak heading into the national semifinal and senior keeper Ashley Haden has had 10 shutouts, 14 by the team.

Offensively, Western is ranked No. 24 in the nation in scoring, averaging 2.43 goals per game.

Miles, Nilles and Savanna Moorehouse were named to the 2015 D2CAA NCAA Division II Women’s Soccer All-West Region Team and Emily Webster was named to the second team. This was Miles’ second year to be named.

After the 3-1 win over Dallas Baptist to advance to the Final Four, Miles had reached her record 45 career goals, the fourth highest in school history.

It was a team effort, she said after the game. Throughout the season the Vikings have grown defensively and advanced to become leaders in their ability to pass often and keep control of the ball.

“We need to settle down and have confidence in ourselves that we can win these games,” Miles said, looking ahead to the Final Four.

She was right, the Vikings success has been a team effort. It’s not just the seniors who have excelled, but so have the underclassmen.

Freshman forward Gabriela Pelogi is the Vikings second leading scorer with 9 goals and 23 points. She was also one of the five players who earned GNAC player of the week honors during the regular season.

After the win that ensured Western’s place in the Final Four, Pelogi could hardly contain her excitement.

“We worked really good together defending today and I’m excited for the final four,” she said. “I think we are going to win everything.”

Connell repeats now what he has said after every other postseason game this year, that the team will continue to win.

“I’m proud of the gals,” he said. “They have already accomplished a lot but they are going to win this. They have every intention of playing two more games.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2015 at 10:27 PM with the headline "WWU women’s soccer confident entering Final Four."