The Oregon women’s soccer team (8-7-1 overall, 0-5-0 Pacific-10 Conference) has an emotional weekend coming up as they host both Washington schools in what will be the team’s final home series of the season. And for the team’s five seniors — Teresa Bowns, Adriana Montes, Dani Oster, Jessie Proulx and Danielle Sweeney — it will be the last home match of their collegiate career.
For fifth-year head coach Tara Erickson this class has been particularly special in that they have been involved with the program for nearly as long as she has been coaching.
“I’m obviously very connected to them,” Erickson said. “The first year they came in and helped us do great things. They helped us take the program to another level.”
Oster and Sweeney were the only two freshmen to start all 20 games during that 2006 season, while Sweeney was named to the All-Pac-10 freshman team and earned All-Pac-10 honorable mention accolades. Since then they have each played in all 20 games every season, which Sweeney says is a great example of the importance of the team’s athletic trainers and nutritionists.
“Just being smart and taking care of our bodies,” she said. “While really trying to figure out what helps you recover the quickest.”
Oster reiterated that same message.
“I think it just reflects how hard we’ve worked, and how much we really dedicate to the team,” Oster said. “Because it takes a lot to be able to start for all four years.”
And while both Oster and Sweeney have achieved great success throughout their careers, the 5-foot-2-inch Bowns has put together an outstanding career on the field as well. She currently ranks first in school history in assists with 16, second in shots with 171, tied for second with Oster and Sweeney for consecutive matches played with 76, fifth in points with 40, seventh in goals with 12, and tied for 10th in matches started with 70.
“(Teresa) on the field is a great soccer player,” Erickson said. “So I think she brings a lot of leadership there.”
Redshirt senior goalkeeper Proulx has her name etched deep into the Oregon record books as well as she ranks first in goalkeeper wins with 25, shutouts with 16, goals against average at 1.40, and is third in saves with 243. Proulx returned to the team roughly a month ago after suffering a torn anterior cruciate ligament during July of 2008.
Montes, the final Duck senior and a walk-on from Lane Community College, has been heavily plagued with injuries during her three-year Oregon career. After playing in 10 games as a sophomore in 2006, she went down with a preseason injury that kept her out of all but two games the following season. Then in 2008, Montes played in the first five games of the year before going down with another season-ending injury. She later received a medical redshirt that allowed her to play again in 2009.
“I think that they’re equally invested like all of our coaches and the rest of their teammates,” Erickson said of the seniors. “They want to see success, not only for themselves but for our program.”
Seeing success has been scarce over the course of this Pac-10 season, as the Ducks have gone winless through the first five weeks, which puts all the more pressure on these final four games.
“We have four games left to get try and get us to what has been our goal for four years,” Oster said, “which is getting to the tournament.”
Even with the season and their careers winding down, there is no doubt that the seniors still have goals and expectations for the next four matches. And in order to have a chance at making the team’s ultimate goal of reaching the NCAA tournament, they will have to continue with what got them there — selflessness.
“We all put the team before individual success,” Oster concluded. “We’ve all switched positions many times throughout the four years and we do whatever the coaches want because that’s what’s best for the team. I think that’s pretty admirable.”
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The end of the beginning
Daily Emerald
October 26, 2009
Jack Hunter
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