2017 Women's Soccer

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Puck Frovidence
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2017 Women's Soccer

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Lady Rams begin their season Friday vs Bryant at 7PM. URI was picked to finish 11th in the Atlantic 10 by the coaches preseason poll.

-This will be a fresh start for team; head coach Michael Needham (45-58-11) left for an assistant position at Ohio State in February after a disappointing 2016 season (6-8-5 / 3-4-3 A10). Stepping into the role will be former Wake Forrest assistant Megan Jessee, in her first D1 head coaching position. While at Wake Forest, Megan helped the Deacons win a ACC Conference title, and reach the NCAA Tournament six times, including an appearance in the quarters in 2009, where they would eventually finish ranked 8th in the country. She grew up in PA, played for UConn and has experience coaching youth programs in the nutmeg state as well.

-Joining Jessee as a new assistant will be George Kostelis. Kostelis has a long history in Connecticut collegiate soccer, most recently as assistant at Southern Connecticut State. Before that he was HC at WestConn, and an assistant at Yale, UConn (both of whom made runs in the NCAAs during his time there) and Hartford, where he played in college. Presumably the UConn connection is what brought him into contact with Jessee.

-Most exciting among the incoming freshmen has got to be British import D-woman Aysha Bentick, who captained the U16 team for the LFC club of Premier League competitor Tottenham Hotspur. Other incoming Freshmen include two new goalkeepers, midfielders representing NH, MA and CT and South County native Brooke Osmanski. Osmanski, who played forward for North Kingstown High's Varsity squad all four years, won a division championship with the team in 2015 and went on to become captain in her senior year. In her time at NKHS she tallied 38 goals and 27 assists.

-The strongest part of the schedule includes matches against Marquette and Memphis, who finished last season ranked #29 and 30 in the nation respectively. Other top-100 (2016) opponents on the table include St. Joes (40), St. Louis (60), Brown (64), Mason (76), Fordham (77), Vandy (81) and GW (97). The squad hosts regional teams at home before going on the road in September to play Memphis and Vanderbilt at the Music City Invitational. Following that on Sunday 10th of Sept at 1pm the Rams will host their (currently) highest ranked opponent of the season Marquette in Kingston. A10 play begins at Fordham on Sept 21st, and the A10 tournament will begin on October 28th, hosted by VCU.

-In recent years, the American Sports Network has carried some A10 Women's Soccer games on TV, and URI's games at Vanderbilt will be carried on SEC Network Plus (FIOS 332/COX 124 and WatchESPN). Radio coverage has been carried on RIU2 like most non "big four" URI sports, but is done by students so probably won't start until September.

TLDR: New coach, new staff, at least a few promising new players and a decent schedule seem to make this a reasonably interesting year for URI Women's Soccer, which starts Friday.
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Puck Frovidence
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Re: 2017 Women's Soccer

Unread post by Puck Frovidence »

Rams split the weekend, lost to Bryant on Friday but Sunday senior forward Taylor Ross dropped a hat trick on Vermont in a 4-2 URI win. Jessee's first at URI.
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