A simple truth about sports: If you don’t score you can’t win.
After struggling to score goals the entire season, the Billikens field hockey team finished with a 5-14 record.
The Bills simply couldn’t get the offense going for more than one game at a time. Throughout the course of the year, the Bills were shutout in nine of their 19 games. In fact, it took until the fourth game of the year for the Bills to score a goal.
The team, however, does not see the season as a failure. Head coach Shannon West said, “Overall this season we made a lot of progress. It was some of the best hockey we’ve played since I’ve been here. Unfortunately, we didn’t get the results that we wanted.”
The Bills are going to lose their most prolific players to graduation. Seniors Keri Brunner and Heather Mattingly both ended their careers at SLU with the Bills elimination from the NorPac Championship Tournament.
Mattingly and Brunner both received postseason awards. Mattingly was voted to the First Team All-Conference for the second straight year. She scored 14 points throughout the year and led the team as their captain.
“She totally earned it. She made herself a player. She’s worked hard, and I’m glad the coaches recognized that in their voting,” West said.
Brunner was honored as well, being voted to the Second Team All-Conference. She scored 19 points on the year and led the Bills in goals with nine.
“She’s worked hard for four straight years. She’s been one of the leaders the entire time,” West said.
The Bills are also going to lose seniors Sue Albers, Kristen Burich and Erin Linehan. “We lose five seniors who were all starters. Those are going to be big positions to fill. We’ll miss Burich and Linehan on defense. Erin had a great year and is in the running for one of the top goalkeepers in terms of saves,” West said.
Although it was a disappointing season, the Bills know that they finished the season a different team than the one that began it. Junior goalkeeper Leslie Kearns said, “It was a strong season-you could definitely tell the difference between the way we began the season and the way we ended it. We need to take our strong team unity and the momentum that we built and go from there.”
Kearns also explained that the returning Bills are looking toward next year and getting prepared for the upcoming season already.
“We are getting ready for spring conditioning. Chris West is working us out really hard right now. We are doing a lot of plyometrics and a mixture of long and short runs. All of that mixed with our weight lifting is getting us prepared to compete next year in our tough conference,” Kearns said.
“This spring we’ll work with the players on an individual basis. We’ll work on fundamentals and then we’ll attend two spring tournaments in April,” West said.
The Billikens are looking ahead now and trying to figure out a way to get better next season. They know that the talent is there and that they are capable of being a good team. Until next season, they will be searching for players to step up and fill the void that is being left by the seniors.
“We need to bring in five players to fill the holes in the starting lineup,” West said.
Despite a disappointing season, the Billikens are positive about their future.
