Season Outlook
The climb was almost complete at the end of the 2008 season. Since head coach Colleen Fink took over the team following a 10th-place Centennial Conference campaign in 2005, the Fords have made a steady climb up the rungs of the conference ladder and in the final game of the 2008 regular season found themselves staring at a possible playoff berth in the league tournament.
A heartbreaking overtime loss left the Fords in a tie for fifth place in the standings and on the outside of the tournament looking in, narrowly missing a spot in what would have been their first Centennial postseason playoffs.
The positives of the ’08 year were many, though, and hint at a possible break out season for Haverford in 2009. This year’s preseason conference coaches’ poll certainly agrees as the Fords garnered 66 points in the voting placing them fourth in the poll. Last year’s five Centennial victories were the most in program history and their 9-9 overall record was the best since an 11-3-2 mark in 1991 while playing in the precursor of the Centennial, the Middle Atlantic Conference.
Leading the optimism heading into the ’09 season is the return of the team’s top-five goal and point scorers on offense and its starting goalkeeper in the defensive end.
Sophomores Josie Ferri, Margaret Selsor, Roxanne Jaffe and Juliana Morgan-Trostle, along with junior Alex Waleko combined to score 43 of the team’s 44 goals last year. Ferri’s team-leading 15 goals and 36 points were fifth in the league, and Jaffe ranked fifth-best among the league leaders in assists.
“The Class of 2012 [sophomores] proved themselves as one of the best classes in the conference,” said Fink. “It is our hope the combination of returning players and added assets in the Class of 2013 [freshmen] will bring this team to the next level,” she added. Returning goalie Maggie Cronin posted a .718 saves percentage which ranked the junior fifth among her peers in the Centennial and her 102 saves were sixth-most.
In all, nine of 11 starters return for a team that was battle-tested during an ’08 schedule that included five of the 24 teams that played in the NCAA tournament. The veterans of that squad were predominantly under classmen with defender Ariel Herm hitting the turf in ’09 as the team’s only senior.
Fink’s young but experienced squad welcomes seven freshmen into the fold entering the preseason camp. Heading into the early practice sessions, Mary Hobbs, Bridget Gibbons and Sarah Crist have the makings of a trio of newcomers that might make an impact on the game turf early on, however, the remaining first-year players also have designs on what they hope will be the first of many postseason-caliber teams.
The ’09 schedule is, if possible, even more ambitious than the preceding year’s as the Fords take on six teams ranked within the top-20 of the preseason poll beginning with their opening game against No. 15 Stevens Institute of Technology. Other ranked teams on the slate include No. 3 Ursinus College, No. 11 Johns Hopkins University and No. 18 Gettysburg College from within the Centennial Conference as well as No. 8 Lebanon Valley College and No. 10 Rowan University from outside the league.
Fink has brought her Fords to within reach of the league’s best teams and has her ’09 squad reaching for the next rung on the league ladder. A potent non-conference slate should toughen up a promising Scarlet and Black crew and help them battle through league play into the Centennial postseason.
“The program has been working extremely hard at every level—coaches and athletes,” explains Fink. “The confidence, commitment and talent are all in place to make (2009) a breakthrough season.”