Of this year's 23 Vanderbilt women's soccer players, only four have more than one letter of collegiate experience. The team boasts an astounding 19 underclassmen. With so much youth on the team, words such as "tremendous leaders," "unity," "even mentality" and "professional" are not words that one would expect a head coach to use when describing her squad, but fourteen games into the season this is exactly how coach Ronnie Coveleskie feels about the girls on this year's team.
Since even before the season began, the girls have been bonding together and the team has been taking steps to ensure success not only for this season, but for the seasons the girls have left together as well. The team has been able to create chemistry through their youthful attitude as well as the new experiences that so many of them share together for the first time.
"I think that they share the youthful enthusiasm and I think that that's something that you can't teach and as you age you lose it," Coveleskie said. "So I think that there's [an attitude] of fun that is instilled in that [enthusiasm] because of the fact that everything is still exciting to them."
That excitement has led the team to five straight victories to open the season and win two of its last three conference games for an 8-5-1 record.
Steps were taken early to embrace this youthful enthusiasm and help the girls bond together and become stronger through it.
"We went to dinner a bunch of times, more than half of us went on a boat together on weekends...and during preseason we all roomed in Branscomb together during the soccer camp and it was really fun," said freshman Lyndsey Wilcox.
Such experiences paired with a smaller veteran presence have allowed the younger players to come together in unique and very mature ways. This elevated sense of responsibility and maturity has caused this young team to respond to the highs and lows throughout the season in ways that are usually reserved for extremely experienced and veteran teams.
"They keep building upon what they did the day before and we try to keep an even mentality throughout the course of the season," Coveleskie said. "We love coming out to train and we love being together and we still believe we're going to win some games."
Without doubt some of the senior leadership has contributed to the success of the younger players this year. For Lyndsey Wilcox, she has had the unique experience of having senior Amy Wilcox be not only a veteran leader, but also her sister.
"She's a great leader on and off the field," the freshman said. "Not even just me, [but I think] everyone on the team thinks of her as a sister."
While this year's seniors and their leadership abilities will definitely be missed when they are gone, the future certainly looks bright for the women's soccer program.
"They're growing as athletes and they're growing as soccer players everyday," Coveleskie said. "The future with them leading us is so bright."
"I think that everyone's improving. When [the sophomores] are seniors and we're juniors, we're going to be awesome," Lyndsey Wilcox said. "We're going to be unbeatable."
