The Miami Women’s Club soccer team isn’t your typical collegiate club team. Brad Vahalik, Quinn Budig, and Nick Paz led the team with their unique coaching abilities to be the second best women’s club team in the nation. These three men are senior frat guys. They are twenty-one and twenty-two year-olds who show up to most games incredibly hung-over and in sweatpants, not your typical soccer coaches, however, clearly, they know how to get the job done.
The team won their regional tournament, which earned them a spot in the 21st Annual NIRSA National Soccer Championships in Memphis, Tennessee. 96 teams participated in the tournament. Miami won their first game against the University of Florida 3-2 and then went on to beat CU Boulder 4-1. They continued their winning streak against the University of Kansas with a score of 2-1 and then against the University of North Carolina with a score of 2-0. They met the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the semi-finals, which was an even and long match of talented girls and sore legs. The game went into sudden death overtime where the score remained at 0-0 at the end of the fifteen-minute overtime. The teams had to go into penalty kicks where their goalie, Bailey Hatch, saved two goals and senior defender, Amanda Filian, scored the fifth and game-winning goal.
Bailey Hatch is a sophomore from Columbus, Ohio, and the starting goalie for the team. She remained calm and collected during the penalty kicks and fellow teammate, Madeline Engelking, said, “Bailey continues to impress her everyday.”
After the exhausting game versus UCSB, Miami met their regional rival, Ohio State University, in the sixth and final game of the weekend. Miami previously beat OSU during their season play and they defeated them again in the regional finals. OSU was hungry for a win. The fact that both of these teams met for a third time in the national finals says quite a lot about the talent of their region. The game came down to who was more physically fit. OSU had a lucky goal in the first half and then scored again in the second half. The final result was 2-0. Both teams played their hearts out, but Miami just couldn’t finish their opportunities.
Despite the results of this tournament, Miami has beaten the national champions twice prior to the actual tournament and I believe they could do it again. No one saw Miami making it this far in the tournament. Most of the teams in the tournament hadn’t even heard of the school prior to this past weekend. Three frat guys and a group of dysfunctional shambly “chicks,” as their coaches call them, earned the title of the second best collegiate club soccer team in the nation. I believe this team made it so far because this is the only team that truly has fun at every practice and during every game. The coaches don’t yell at their players and they don’t force them to do fitness six times a week. The captains, Taylor Wells and Steph Recker, lead the team as a friend rather than a boss. They understand schoolwork and getting ready for semi-formal trumps practice. They trust their team to condition on their own and they lead by example.
The team has a steady practice routine of playing four-corners, scrimmaging, and playing World Cup here or there to mix it up. They don’t take the sport too seriously, but come game time, it’s all about winning for the next ninety-minutes. The team works together as a unit. During the half times of each game the players and coaches come together and talk about what needs to be done to improve the game or what needs to keep happening in order to maintain their lead. It’s a cohesive group that listens to each other rather than having a mean coach strictly tell individual players what they need to do. This team is truly a unique group who is here just to play because they love the game and to win of course. Most of the players agree that they would not have continued to play if the environment and team chemistry was anything other than what it currently is.
They work hard for each other and because they truly enjoy the game of soccer. The team has three seniors, Lauren Davis, Grace Sims, and Amanda Filian, who had a phenomenal season and tournament. They were the anchors and the motivation for the girls. For the teams who practice for two hours, six days a week, for the coaches who do nothing but lose their voices from screaming at their teams, for the girls who think a good nights rest is what’s needed before a big game… maybe you should take some notes from Miami’s team. They may be second in the national rankings, but these girls are number one in a lot of hearts (and technically, in the Women’s Midwest Alliance Soccer Conference too).
