CCIW

[PlaySimple]

^ Great info, Gregory. Thank you for sharing.

Hopefully, the NP women's team does start to find some success. The CCIW could use another quality program aside from the usual suspects Wheaton, Illinois Wesleyan, Auggie, etc

[Gregory Sager]

Well, NPU did have a pretty good debut today. The Vikings tied Aurora, 1-1, and while Aurora is not exactly a world-beater, it should be noted that the Spartans had beaten NPU seven straight times coming into tonight. The draw was North Park's first non-loss to Aurora since the two teams stalemated by an identical 1-1 score all the way back in 2007. Even though the Vikings were missing two of last spring's starters to injury and had five freshmen in the starting lineup (including the goalkeeper and the entire back line), they performed well enough to legitimately earn the draw. NPU's talent level is significantly higher than it's been, that's for certain, and I'm convinced that Emma Woodley has the program on the right path.

[Gotberg]

NPU roster posted.  Lots of newcomers

https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/womens-soccer/roster

[PlaySimple]

NPU roster posted.  Lots of newcomers

https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/womens-soccer/roster

There isn't any information on the newcomers listed but in reading through and looking at the surnames I would assume that NP is still getting a lot of Scandinavian athletes.

[Gotberg]

NPU roster posted.  Lots of newcomers

https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/womens-soccer/roster

There isn't any information on the newcomers listed but in reading through and looking at the surnames I would assume that NP is still getting a lot of Scandinavian athletes.

Yes, and the first year player commitments were posted on Instagram - still not a lot of detail but at least info from where they hail.

Edited to add the Instagram link:  https://www.instagram.com/npuwsoccer/

I might be wrong, but it looks like there were at least 3 transfers too.  2 from NAIA schools and 1 Division 1.

[Gregory Sager]

NPU roster posted.  Lots of newcomers

https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/womens-soccer/roster

There isn't any information on the newcomers listed but in reading through and looking at the surnames I would assume that NP is still getting a lot of Scandinavian athletes.

"A lot" is a relative term. NPU has regularly had Scandinavians on the women's soccer roster, going back to the program's inception in the mid-'90s, just as has the men's team. That's only natural, given North Park's historical ties to Sweden dating back to the school's founding by Swedish immigrants in 1891. Sometimes they wouldn't have any Scandinavian players on the roster, sometimes one or two or even as many as four, but there was an ongoing trickle of players coming from Sweden, Norway, and even Denmark on occasion.

But the various coaches who've run the NPU women's soccer program over the years never really made a concerted effort to recruit in Scandinavia. They more or less took potluck in terms of Scandinavian women showing up at school and wanting to participate on the soccer team. Given how devoted Europeans are to playing soccer from early childhood, their high quality of skills development and coaching in youth soccer, and thus how much more advanced in technical ability Europeans have always been in this sport, even on a walk-on basis they were usually among the best, and sometimes actually the best, players that the Vikings fielded.

But the coaches never caught on to the fact that the stream of one, two, or three Scandinavians they'd pick up by accident every year could both be expanded and improved in per-player quality if they actually put some effort into it rather than focusing exclusively upon recruiting Americans and then taking any Swedish or Norwegian walk-ons as a sort of pleasant surprise. They could actually recruit over there and improve the quality of what they were getting, and, thus the program, if they were intentional about it. But if any of them even tried, it was a fitful try at best. Most of them, if not all, never even tried.

Most importantly, given how important Swedish and Norwegian players have been to the NPU men's soccer program in lifting the Vikings from the CCIW cellar in the late '90s to first a regional power and now a national power, you'd think that the various NPU women's soccer coaches would want to emulate that success by copying it. You'd think that ... but you'd be wrong. And so the Vikings just muddled along in the CCIW's second division every season, often in the basement. In fact, that is where they've finished in each of the last six seasons; their most recent win in league play was a 1-0 home win over Millikin all the way back in September of 2016.

Enter Emma Woodley, who took over as North Park's head coach in 2020. She herself had been one of the best American players NPU has had over the past couple of decades when she was Emma Lundeen, being named All-CCIW second team in 2013 and All-CCIW first team in 2014. A former North Park admissions counselor and assistant coach, she knew exactly what kind of player to recruit to North Park and how to recruit them. And she realized what none of her predecessors ever grasped; North Park has a ready-made pipeline to Scandinavian student-athletes already, and it just needs to be tapped for women's soccer by a coach who is willing to put in the work and use the things in her recruiting pitch that make NPU such an attractive place for Norwegians and Swedes to go to school there.

She's started off by bringing in a lot of quantity, and now the quality is getting better as well. For example, one player to watch this year in the CCIW is NPU's new D1 transfer, center mid Madi Häger. All it took was seeing one scrimmage to convince me that she is the real deal.

The way that the Viking men improved was to increase the quantity and quality of the Scandinavian recruits and find the right mix between them and the American players. That is the formula that Emma Woodley is seeking to use now for the Viking women. I think that it will start to pay dividends this season. I realize that the CCIW coaches have slated NPU to finish at the bottom again this season, but I'm convinced that the Vikings will not only get out of the basement in 2022 but may even make it upward to the middle of the CCIW pack. Rome was not built in a day, but it is conceivable that the Vikings could challenge for the top within the next two or three seasons if Emma can continue to recruit this well and if the NPU program maintains a strong retention rate and isn't overwhelmed by injuries. After all, the ascension of North Central is proof positive that Wheaton and Illinois Wesleyan don't automatically have a lock on the league every season.

[Gotberg]

NPU roster posted.  Lots of newcomers

https://athletics.northpark.edu/sports/womens-soccer/roster

There isn't any information on the newcomers listed but in reading through and looking at the surnames I would assume that NP is still getting a lot of Scandinavian athletes.

"A lot" is a relative term. NPU has regularly had Scandinavians on the women's soccer roster, going back to the program's inception in the mid-'90s, just as has the men's team. That's only natural, given North Park's historical ties to Sweden dating back to the school's founding by Swedish immigrants in 1891. Sometimes they wouldn't have any Scandinavian players on the roster, sometimes one or two or even as many as four, but there was an ongoing trickle of players coming from Sweden, Norway, and even Denmark on occasion.

But the various coaches who've run the NPU women's soccer program over the years never really made a concerted effort to recruit in Scandinavia. They more or less took potluck in terms of Scandinavian women showing up at school and wanting to participate on the soccer team. Given how devoted Europeans are to playing soccer from early childhood, their high quality of skills development and coaching in youth soccer, and thus how much more advanced in technical ability Europeans have always been in this sport, even on a walk-on basis they were usually among the best, and sometimes actually the best, players that the Vikings fielded.

But the coaches never caught on to the fact that the stream of one, two, or three Scandinavians they'd pick up by accident every year could both be expanded and improved in per-player quality if they actually put some effort into it rather than focusing exclusively upon recruiting Americans and then taking any Swedish or Norwegian walk-ons as a sort of pleasant surprise. They could actually recruit over there and improve the quality of what they were getting, and, thus the program, if they were intentional about it. But if any of them even tried, it was a fitful try at best. Most of them, if not all, never even tried.

Most importantly, given how important Swedish and Norwegian players have been to the NPU men's soccer program in lifting the Vikings from the CCIW cellar in the late '90s to first a regional power and now a national power, you'd think that the various NPU women's soccer coaches would want to emulate that success by copying it. You'd think that ... but you'd be wrong. And so the Vikings just muddled along in the CCIW's second division every season, often in the basement. In fact, that is where they've finished in each of the last six seasons; their most recent win in league play was a 1-0 home win over Millikin all the way back in September of 2016.

Enter Emma Woodley, who took over as North Park's head coach in 2020. She herself had been one of the best American players NPU has had over the past couple of decades when she was Emma Lundeen, being named All-CCIW second team in 2013 and All-CCIW first team in 2014. A former North Park admissions counselor and assistant coach, she knew exactly what kind of player to recruit to North Park and how to recruit them. And she realized what none of her predecessors ever grasped; North Park has a ready-made pipeline to Scandinavian student-athletes already, and it just needs to be tapped for women's soccer by a coach who is willing to put in the work and use the things in her recruiting pitch that make NPU such an attractive place for Norwegians and Swedes to go to school there.

She's started off by bringing in a lot of quantity, and now the quality is getting better as well. For example, one player to watch this year in the CCIW is NPU's new D1 transfer, center mid Madi Häger. All it took was seeing one scrimmage to convince me that she is the real deal.

The way that the Viking men improved was to increase the quantity and quality of the Scandinavian recruits and find the right mix between them and the American players. That is the formula that Emma Woodley is seeking to use now for the Viking women. I think that it will start to pay dividends this season. I realize that the CCIW coaches have slated NPU to finish at the bottom again this season, but I'm convinced that the Vikings will not only get out of the basement in 2022 but may even make it upward to the middle of the CCIW pack. Rome was not built in a day, but it is conceivable that the Vikings could challenge for the top within the next two or three seasons if Emma can continue to recruit this well and if the NPU program maintains a strong retention rate and isn't overwhelmed by injuries. After all, the ascension of North Central is proof positive that Wheaton and Illinois Wesleyan don't automatically have a lock on the league every season.

Thanks Greg - I'll try to watch a game this year!

[Gregory Sager]

Thanks Greg - I'll try to watch a game this year!

Tune in this evening at 7 pm to watch them host Benedictine. It's the first Viking Sports Network livestream of the year. The men's game at Beloit starts at 4 pm, so that will be over by the time that the women start.

[RogK]

while proceeding to the Elmhurst women's basketball pages, noticed this interesting photo :
https://elmhurstbluejays.com/news/2022/9/15/womens-soccer-stung-by-hornets.aspx
stretchy fabric

[Gregory Sager]

Gee, no foul there.

[PlaySimple]

I am beginning to think that Illinois Wesleyan will win the league this season. North Central was supposed to have been the top dog but their 0-0 draw with a Wheaton side that is down this year shows that they are susceptible. The winner of the IWU vs NC match should be considered to be the top dog in the CCIW. IWU had a rough game eary in the year against a very strong Wartburg teambut since beating a strong UW-La Crosse team 2-1, have been very good and now stand at 6-1-2 and 4-0 in the CCIW. I would not be surprised to see them appear in the top 25 soon. The Titans' two biggest games remaining on the schedule are at the end of the month at North Central and at Wash U. They also have a game against a UW-Whitewater side that always seems to have a lot of fight in them year-to-year.

Contrasting the games that IWU and NC played against Wheaton is interesting. IWU beat Wheaton 5-0 and had 19 shots with 13 on frame. Wheaton, meanwhile, had 7 shots with 4 on frame. NC and Wheaton drew, 0-0. NC had 17 shots with 4 on frame while Wheaton had 13 shots with 4 on frame. 

It seems like IWU's new coach, Oz Bakirdan, is getting the program back on track after there was some coaching instability when Dave Barrett went to Fairfield. They had a bad hire followed by an excellent hire in Keri Sanchez but she was short-lived, coaching only one season and leaving for D1 Colorado College. Bakirdan seems to be a good fit and someone that will be at IWu for a bit.

[iwu70]

Congrats to the TITANS on the CCIW Tournament Championship -- winning over North Central today 4-1.  On to the NCAA tournament.   

IWU'70

[Gotberg]

I'm looking forward to the NPU women playing this year, I think they're on the rise.  In addition to the new recruits, they also have a player who sat out last year with high potential, based on her H.S. career - looking forward to the season.

[Gregory Sager]

NPU is, indeed, definitely on the rise. And the Vikings will also be fun to watch, since they will have a much more potent offense this season than they've had in ages. I watched NPU scrimmage Concordia (IL) on Wednesday evening, and it was immediately obvious that the talent level is significantly higher than I can ever remember seeing from a North Park women's soccer team since the pre-Y2K era. In particular, there are four players -- freshman forward Morgan Wehseler (the player who sat out last year that Gotberg mentioned), junior midfielder Nora Vangsnes (who started last season for a high-powered NAIA team, Cardinal Stritch, that won its league and made the national tourney), senior midfielder/defender Agnes Bäck (steady and reliable), and freshman midfielder Maja Applequist (a soccer legacy and a Niles West alumna with a very high ceiling at the D3 level) -- who have the potential to join senior CB Lina Bogg on the All-CCIW team in 2023.

That said, the building of the program (can it really be called a rebuilding if the program hasn't had a winning season since 2005?) is far from complete. There's still a hole or two, and the depth still isn't quite there yet in terms of being top-half-of-the-CCIW quality. But Emma Woodley has set up a very strong non-conference schedule that should really prepare the Vikings well for conference play. The Vikings were picked for sixth in the preseason poll, which was where they were frequently picked to finish in the Oughts and the early Teens, but they haven't been picked that high since 2014. (NPU has never been picked to finish higher than sixth since Y2K.) But with consistent play, no major health setbacks, and a break here or there, it's conceivable that the Vikings could sneak into the first division and qualify for the CCIW tourney.

Realistically, I don't think anybody's going to catch North Central, aside from perhaps Illinois Wesleyan (and that seems like a longshot). After those two, there seems to be an enormous gap before you get to the middle of the pack. The question is whether or not NPU can fight its way into the middle of that pack (Augustana, Wheaton, and Carroll) and eke out a playoff spot.

I will keep my expectations modest and will just look forward to another season of improvement for North Park women's soccer. Emma definitely has the program moving in the right direction.

[PlaySimple]

What a difference a few years makes in the CCIW. Perennial stalwarts Wheaton & Illinois Wesleyan are 1-5-3 & 1-8-1, respectively, on the season.

I believe that prior to this season IWU was 27-0 all-time vs Millikin. Last evening Millikin beat them, 2-0. On the year IWU has only scored 5 goals while giving up 24. This is a reflection of the lack of recruiting effort from the coach that immediately followed Barrett after he went to Fairfield. It's going to take Bakirdan a few more years to restock the cabinets.

Wheaton and IWU play this weekend to stay out of the cellar. It looks like Auggie & North Central are the strongest sides this season.