AFTER-THOUGHTS FROM WOMEN’S SOCCER CHAMPIONSHIP EARNING SEASON

21 games. 10 teams. A battle for a spot in the championship. Gordon College’s women’s soccer team kicked, shot, and ran their way to the final of the CNE championship. After incredible hurdles, countless injuries, edge-of-seat performances, and fighting hard to go the distance, they got closer and closer to the conference title. On the morning of Saturday, November 9th, the women’s soccer team headed south to Hartford Connecticut to go head-to-head with Hartford University in hopes of taking home the trophy. After a grueling 90 minutes, Hartford came out on top, but this journey did not fail to leave lasting memories and impacting moments on each of the players’ hearts. As Defender Bekah Hammond ‘26 put it, “The adversity that we faced, just with low numbers [with] people that were injured,” did not keep this special group of girls from persevering. “I was one of the people that was injured,” she added, in full acknowledgement of the notable journey that the team made. The loss is just the beginning of the changes that will be implemented starting up during the off-season in the Spring. Midfielder Jade LaBossier ‘27 mentioned that “going forward in the Spring, we learned a lot about how the higher-level teams play and that we need to work on our own play to be able to perform at the same level.” Facing top competitors gave the team, as Hammond put it, “a goal of what to get to [in the future].” Expectations are being set, and bars are being raised by Coach Chuck Breton, and as LaBossier noted, “He thinks that at the level we need to be playing at, we need to play with more of an attacking mindset to be able to possess and keep the ball.” She goes on to athletically say, “I think one thing he is focusing on more this Spring and next year will probably be possession [of the ball].”  

As Women’s Soccer rests briefly for the Winter season, the team continues to hold pride in the fact that they made the Championships and were able to display to other teams the God that they play for throughout it all. LaBossier said that the most encouraging part about playing in the D3 competition was, “Seeing how much the team wanted it when we were there.” She went on to say, “Even when we did not have the score we wanted, everyone was still having the most fun we had all season. Everyone giving everything and knowing we deserved to be there was fun.”