Women’s club soccer serves crushing win, makes playoffs

Imani Keel defends the ball during a recent game against Mott Community College. Eric Le | Washtenaw Voice

By Brian Babcock
Staff Writer

Last weekend, the WCC women’s club soccer team dominated over U-M Flint in a 5-1 victory. Overcast skies, cold temps and strong winds battered the field on Sunday, but they managed to pull just one point shy of third place in the league.

WCC is a part of eight total club teams which compete in the area, including: U-M Ann Arbor, Wayne State University, Eastern Michigan University, Oakland University, Hillsdale University, U-M Flint and Mott Community College.

After a hard-fought regular season and a strong finish, the team managed to qualify for the league tournament on Nov. 3, where they will play the top six teams in the league again for a championship title. So far, WCC is in the hot seat as the reigning champions since the spring 2019 season, where they won first place.

“We’ve played these teams before in the spring and we won the spring tournament,” said Veronica Slayon, the team captain. “We weren’t expecting that at all, but we have a really good team and some nice skill.”

Slayton said the competition has been fierce though, citing Eastern Michigan University as their top competitor. So far this season, WCC lost to EMU 2-1, but then tied them during the second game at 2-2.

Slayton said many of the larger universities they play simply have a larger pool of girls to pull from, and some, like Madonna, even recruit them to play.

Stephanie Dooper is in her second year of coaching the WCC women’s club team.

“So, my first season of coaching we lost almost every game, and that was last fall. Then we came back during the next semester and won the spring tournament,” Dooper said. “Seeing them come together and redo what we did the year before was really cool.”

Dooper said the team’s ability to make strong combination plays up the midfield is their key to achieving success this past year.

The WCC women’s soccer team plays at the Women’s Midwest Collegiate Club Soccer League conference on Sunday, Nov. 3 at 11 a.m. at Oakland University. Their first game will be against Oakland. The game will take place at 2200 N. Squirrel Road, Rochester.

Comments

comments