The Lakeland University women's soccer team will play for the first time in nearly 17 months and opens its first-ever spring season when it hosts Alverno College at 4 p.m. Sunday afternoon at Taylor Field.
Lakeland University is permitting 250 spectators at Saturday's game, limited to current Lakeland faculty, staff and students and family of Muskies players. For more information visitÂ
. Off-campus spectators are not permitted.
Lakeland and Alverno are meeting for the 19th consecutive season and for the first of two matches this spring. The Muskies have won the last three meetings, including the last time the teams played with a 4-2 come-from-behind victory at Taylor Field on Sept. 29, 2019.
Abby Gastrau scored the go-ahead goal in the 73rd minute and also added two assists, while Meagan Simmons, Rachel Hasko and
Haley Rich all also scored goals.Alverno last win over the Muskies came more than 4 1/2 years ago with a 6-0 win in Milwaukee on Sept. 16, 2016. That capped a four-year stretch where the Inferno won three of four meetings, but Lakeland has outscored Alverno 97-18 through the schools' 18 meetings, including a 63-2 scoring advantage in the teams' first seven meetings.
About Lakeland: The Muskies are coming off a 3-14-1 record in their most recent season in 2019, including a 2-10 mark in the Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference. Lakeland posted conference victories over Alverno and Rockford plus an overtime win over Blackburn (Ill.), but finished the season losing its final eight games, including the last seven by shutout. Five starters return from that team including Gastrau, Rich,
Amanda Buckler,
Tracey Sery and
Erin Tomlinson, who started 11 matches in goal. This year's team includes eight returnees, including defender
Rachel Wilson who played five games before her season ended due to a knee injury, but the Muskies also welcome 17 freshman to the squad for fourth-year coach Rob Blake.
About Alverno: The Inferno finished behind the Muskies in the NACC standings in the 2019 season, posting a 1-11 record in conference and a 5-14 mark overall. Alverno did win four matches out of conference, including victories over Blackburn, Mount Mary, Iowa Wesleyan and Eureka, but other than a league win over Rockford, its closest conference match was the loss to Lakeland. Eight starters return for Alverno led by Shaye Wolfe, who led the team with 10 goals and eight assists for 28 points, ranking sixth in the NACC in assists and just outside the top 10 in goals and points.
Many states represented: This year's Lakeland team has players from across the country, with Muskies coming from seven different states. Besides Wisconsin (14 players) and Illinois (six), Lakeland also has one player each from Arizona California, Michigan, Texas and Wyoming.
Experience in goal: The Muskies have a young team with a host of newcomers, but one area of experience is in goal, where all three who played there last year are back. Tomlinson, Rich and
Emely Ortega combined to start all 18 matches and made a combined 196 saves, finishing with a .745 save percentage and two shutouts. Tomlinson did the majority of the work, starting 11 matches, with Rich starting five and Ortega two.
