The women’s soccer Scots’ opening match was against University of Northwestern (MN) on Aug. 30, in front of a packed grandstand on a sunny late afternoon. It didn’t take long for the Scots to get off the ground. Erica Hamilton ’28 opened the season — and her college career — with a goal in the 32nd minute, assisted by Gabriela Carrillo-Quinones ’27. The Scots had held a measure of advantage during the first part of the match, but the goal opened the floodgates. Adi Nhouyvanisvong ’27 picked up where she had left off in the 2023 season, netting a goal of her own just three minutes after Hamilton’s. After five more minutes, the Scots were on the board again, through a Gaby Valle ’25 effort in the 40th minute. In the second half, Julia Hanson ’27 and Charlotte Martel ’28 provided another flurry of goals in the 56th and 59th minutes, constructing the match’s striking 5-0 final scoreline, beginning yet another season with intentions of challenging the upper echelons of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) table. At the same time, the eight different Scots who appeared on the scoring sheet highlighted another element of this team’s success — a strong sense of togetherness.
“We have made the playoffs in consecutive years for the first time since 2008-2009 and improved from sixth place in 2022 to third place in 2023,” Head Coach Madeline Buckley wrote in an email to The Mac Weekly. “That is the upward trajectory I want to see as a coach and credit that success to our players’ belief in this program. So, I’d say we’re pleased with the progress, but we know we have more work to do and we want more. We have built a strong culture and we are bringing in talented and committed student-athletes to add to our talented roster every year.”
“We are looking to put ourselves in the best possible position to compete for the MIAC championship in the tournament this year,” senior Captain Mikaely Evans ’25 said.
Another captain, Ella Short ’25, alluded to the team’s approach to reaching those goals: “We just want to focus on each game at a time,” Short said. “No game in the MIAC or non-conference comes easily, so it’s really important to us to take every game as they come and … put ourselves in the best possible situation to win the MIAC.”
After a 2022 season where the Scots found themselves in the MIAC playoffs for the first time in seven years only to be ousted by eventual playoff champions St. Catherine University, the 2023 footballing Scots fought their way to several notable wins and right to the top portion of the table. They finished third place at season’s end, although they weren’t able to launch a major challenge against the winning duopoly of Carleton College and St. Kate’s. They looked to become the first Scots side to take home a playoff victory since 2013, but came up short in a contentious home match against Augsburg University. That dichotomy — forward momentum mixed with the feeling that more was possible — marks the road that leads these Scots into another season this fall. Another way of articulating that idea is to treat what these Scots accomplished in the past season as the ground floor.
“We have just come off of two seasons in a row where we’ve made it into the tournament, and I think our program strongly believes this is an expectation now, that we’ll put ourselves in the best position to make it into the tournament and have a strong run,” Evans said.
The second test of the season would be another home affair, against Crown College. Unlike the previous match, it only took the Scots four minutes to get on the board, via Avery Ellis ’27, turning the rebound off a Julia Hanson shot back into the net. An impressively stout 9-save half from Crown’s goalkeeper kept the Scots at bay for the rest of the half, but they would not be held back when the second half began. Uncorking another three-goal burst at the opening of the second half, it would be Hanson once and Hamilton twice in the space of a little over eight minutes, cracking the game wide open. Nhouyvanisvong sent a fifth goal past the opponent in the 71st minute, making it a second 5-0 win in as many matches for these Scots.
The next two contests would take the Scots to California, where they would encounter their strongest competition yet in a critical phase of the preseason. They traveled to Claremont, Cal. to face national #22 ranked side Pomona-Pitzer, a rematch from the 2023 preseason. In the 2023 match, the Scots weathered strong pressure from the Sagehens — holding them scoreless until the end of the first half — but ultimately went down 2-0 at home. In the rematch, the Sagehens conversely got off to a blistering start, scoring twice in the opening nine minutes. To compound the situation, the match was played on a day that reached 115° F, something not necessarily familiar to a Minnesota-based team.
These Scots played much of the 2023 campaign weathering pressure from opponents, then turning it back on them and scoring on the counterattack — four of the Scots’ six in-conference wins last season came in matches where the opponent recorded more shots than them — and this match showed how this skill has carried over into the new year. Amid a Pomona-Pitzer barrage, it was a strong performance from 2023 All-MIAC keeper Abigail Heuga ’27 that kept the Scots in the fight with eight saves in the first half alone. Despite the heat, the Scots obliged Heuga’s performance and fought back. In the 20th minute, the Scots’ other 2023 all-MIAC player, Julia Hanson, rewarded those defensive efforts, netting her third goal of the season and cutting the Sagehen lead in half. The comeback, however, wasn’t meant to be that day. The Scots continued mounting resilient defense, but couldn’t find their equalizer. Although an eight-seconds-left buzzer-beater goal from Pomona-Pitzer meant the Sagehens were able to replicate their 2-goal margin from the 2023 matchup, the performance was one that the Scots can build from, as they face a season in a typically strong footballing conference in the MIAC.
The Pomona-Pitzer match threw up a multifaceted challenge — searing heat and a national powerhouse opponent — and the team was able to cut through it.
“The California trip was an important experience for our program as it was the first out-of-region trip for every member of the team,” Buckley wrote. “It was great to play the now #11 in the nation, Pomona-Pitzer, out there, after hosting them here last year. We were faced with challenging heat but did not for a second give in to anything out of our control. I was so pleased with the team’s resiliency and how we played toe to toe with [the Sagehens]. When you don’t win, you better learn and we have many lessons for our young group coming out of California that will carry us forward into league play. When you have a team with a growth mindset, a lot of great things can happen.”
The second match of the road swing was a similar story for these Scots, as they faced a persistent attack from University of Redlands, in a game played at an alternate location due to wildfires. The Bulldogs were ultimately able to send two past keeper Ashlyn Ryan ’25, who was nevertheless able to keep the Scots at least within striking distance for the duration of the match, logging a career-high 8 saves. However, the Scots weren’t able to get by the Redlands keeper, and the game ended 2-0.
The road swing in California was a definite stress test of this team’s resolve, and despite two losses, it only strengthened them: “We played two really competitive teams, and it was really good to push ourselves against these challenging opponents, and deal with a lot of different factors going into those games, like time changes, 110 degree heat, wildfires,” Evans said. “It definitely showed our team how we can adapt and how we can figure it out on the fly.”
“It was our first real test, our first real challenge, and we were shown a lot of adversity,” Short said. “But I think that’s one thing that’s so great about our team: not once did that come inward, not once did it affect our unity and not once did we turn on each other. We stood together and we took the challenges as they came.”
One consistent theme that members of this team continually return to is attention to detail and to staying even-keeled, both within games and across the length of a season, something both Evans and Short credited as building up that ability to withstand pressure in games.
“I think one of our biggest advantages that we have this season is the talent and the depth of our roster, and what that especially helps is our practices,” Short said. “And I think if we can bring a high intensity, high pressure environment to practice every day that ultimately prepares us best for our games.”
“We also work a lot with sports psychology to determine how we can maximize our performance by playing in a flow state and finding your high performance mindset, where you are in control of everything that’s going on, and nothing is too chaotic on the field,” Evans said. “We also use the US Women’s National Team’s phrase of ‘steady Eddie,’ which is just to keep chugging, keep flowing, and focus on one thing at a time — next game, next ball, next pass. We’re always trying to make the next one the best one.”
The Scots will play one more preseason contest before their MIAC campaign begins, going away to Lawrence University. After that, it’ll be the MIAC opener away to College of Saint Benedict, a rematch of both sides’ 2023 conference opener which saw the Scots take a richly-earned three points. In that match, the Scots were able to upset a higher-ranked opponent, 2-1, setting the tone for a season where they would repeatedly battle to similarly hard-fought victories.
“The team is very excited to begin MIAC play,” Buckley wrote. “Beating St. Ben’s last year started our 5-1 record in the MIAC which set us in good position heading into the final part of the regular season. We will take each MIAC game one by one and that starts with St. Ben’s.”
Another key focus of this team is a real sense of togetherness and solidarity. It’s something that has built up over recent years in the program and something that they’ll rely on to see them through a packed schedule replete with talented opponents: “The growth that we have seen since we’ve gotten here has been amazing; on paper, we’ve won a lot more games and we’ve competed a lot more but also, something that’s really special is our culture has grown so much,” Short said. “I think [during] our freshman year, the relationships inter-class [weren’t] super strong. And now I feel, confidently, as seniors, we can say it doesn’t matter what class you’re in, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been here. We’re all equally part of this team, and I think — leading this team — we want to lead and support this team in the best way that we can, and create an environment, both on and off the field, that everyone wants to be a part of.”
As this team continues to make strides — towards the top of the MIAC table, into the playoffs, generally to places not recently reached by this program or by many other Scots squads — it’s that culture that will take them far, along with a continued emphasis on staying steady.
Mikaely Evans, whose three previous years on this team have seen transformative progress, puts it this way: “I think — being a senior this year — it’s given me a lot more confidence; I have been through it three times before and I know how I can handle myself in the highs and lows,” Evans said. “I know how I can prepare myself for every game, for every practice, for every team meeting, I know how I need to show up. And I think knowing that within myself has made it a lot easier to help the younger members of our team and help them figure it out and be with them every step of the way, in a way that I wish I had when I was a freshman.”
Ella Short, also a senior captain whose first three years with the Scots have seen the steady resurgence of this program, shared in the optimism: “I can confidently say I’m really excited for this season,” Short said. “I think the team that we have and the culture that we have and the talent and the skill that we have is amazing, and something that is really special, so I’m really excited that this gets to be our senior year.”
The stage is set for another competitive season for a team that strives to do everything, on and off the field, with diligence and excellence. Madeline Buckley, ahead of one last preseason fixture followed by the regular season, brimmed with confidence and expectation: “We aim to compete in everything we do as a program. We strongly believe when you compete with each other and for each other, great things will happen,” Buckley wrote. “This team wants more — we are not satisfied with making the playoffs and then bowing out in the first round two years in a row. It’s time for more. This team is hungry — we want more and I believe this group can take us there. Let’s. Go.”
