With a 6-1-1 non-conference record, and a top-25 visit, Vanderbilt women’s soccer has gotten off to a strong start.
But that was the easy part.
Southeastern Conference play awaits, starting off against South Carolina on Friday night and Florida Sunday afternoon.
Both are on the road and with it the Commodores carry the memory of a 3-7-1 SEC record last year that erased a similarly promising start to the season.
Vanderbilt has gotten where it has by beating the likes of Belmont, Oklahoma and Murray State, while showcasing its mproved offense led by junior Molly Kinsella, who leads the team with four goals and seven assists.
The Commodores have also gotten outstanding play in goal from junior Rachel Bachtel who not only sports a .55 goals-against average but also was named Vanderbilt’s female student-athlete of the month for September.
After their 6-0 start they headed to the Auburn Soccer Classic where their undefeated start came to an end after a 3-1 loss to Texas Tech, then finishing up there with a tie aganst Missouri, before coming home and blanking Tennessee-Martin to get to their current record of 6-1-1.
Head coach Ronnie Woodard expressed satisfaction over the start.
"I thought the team played really well, we had some fantastic games, but also some guys where we struggled a bit,” she said. “We certainly have a lot of room growth though heading into the Southeastern Conference part of our schedule."
The Commodores find themselves in a similar position last year where they started strong, but fizzled in SEC play. While the Commodores certainly play better competition once SEC play begins, the biggest obstacle to their success in conference may be their collective psyches.
After last year’s disappointing finish, the team has brought in a sports psychologist to help them get over the mental barriers that plagued them last year and prevented them from capitalizing on their promising start.
"The psychologist has really done a great job of keeping us real, last year we would go into games with the mindset to win, we had no other tangible goals that we could strive for other than to win, now we have goals in place that we set to accomplish in addition to trying to win,” Woodard said.
“The season can be a long one for the girls we start training in August and once October comes around they have to battle mental and physical fatigue, and I believe we can handle that much better this year than we could last season."
After the road trip, the Commodores return for a four-game homestand where they will host Tennessee, Georgia, Arkansas, and LSU.
