Mount St. Joseph placed third in the poll for 2008 season.

Mount St. Joseph placed third in the poll for 2008 season.
Every year the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference (HCAC) comes out with a pre-season prediction on which women’s soccer teams in the Division III conference. They basically guess which team will place first, second and third for the season based on last year’s record. This year Transylvania was the favorite in women’s soccer for the 2008 season. Rose-Hulman was anticipated to finish in the second slot and although we had a great season at the Mount in 2007, we were not predicted to come in higher than third place. When this was shared by Coach Taylor we reacted with disbelief and anger. I guess this is what pumped us up, because the team came alive as if there was a fire under our feet. The entire team was more motivated and energized no matter how intense the practice sessions and training became. Most of us left the practice sessions dragging our feet and begging for just a little rest time, but even those feelings faded as we started to realize that we really had more faith in our own abilities than the conference had in us. The season started out with two losses to teams that were not even supposed to be a challenge at all. Our team needed to regain confidence and it had to happen fast. We could not and would not let the Conference’s prediction jinx our chances to be the great team we knew we could be.