Kean Women’s soccer has a season worth remembering

By Craig Epstein | Published Nov 21, 2018

Even though their record might not indicate it, at 5-8-6 the Kean Women’s soccer team finished a remarkable season where they came up just short of making an appearance in the NJAC finals. Although they lost in the semifinals to Rowan University by a final score of 3-0, Head Coach Brian Doherty is confident that his young team can build off this season and improve in the years to come.

“I don’t think our record reflects the type of season we had this year because we were a very young team that started four freshmen in the defensive end and at times played seven freshmen on the field at once,” Doherty said. “We had six ties which may seem disappointing, but in our sport when it comes to conference play you get a point fora tie and the two ties we had against Rowan and Montclair University helped us get into the NJAC playoffs once again.”

Considering they had not been able to take a point from either Rowan or Montclair in some time, Doherty feels a sense of relief that his team finally achieved this personal goal. He is also encouraged by the fact that his squad was able to hang tough and tie a nationally ranked team like TCNJ.

“The lessons I learned this season that I can apply moving forward are that we can execute two different styles of play and we do both well,” Doherty said. “I believe I learned that we can compete on a national level and that we have a good, young, hardworking core to our team and good leadership from our older players.”

Since both Kean and Rutgers-Newark ended the regular season tied at 10 points in NJAC play, it came down to tiebreakers to determine who would get the final seed in the NJAC tournament. Considering their lone meeting ended in a 0-0 draw, the deciding factor wound up being how the two squads fared against other teams in the NJAC ranked from first to last place. Since Kean tied Rowan (second place) while the Scarlet Raiders fell to them 4-1, the Cougars were able to punch their ticket to the NJAC tournament for the fifth year in a row where they completed a stunning upset over Stockton University by a final score of 1-0 in the first round before being defeated by Rowan 3-0 in the semifinals.

“Making it to the semifinals of the NJAC tournament which, a long with the ties and how hard this team played, made for a great season,” Doherty said. “I think it showed we can compete with anyone considering the youth of the team and the fact that we played the seventh toughest schedule in our region.”

“I think the team as a whole performed very well this season because we worked every second,” Bystrycki said. “The hard work we put out definitely showed and allowed us to be successful in many situations and we executed game plans well which overall helped us stay in games.”

While starting as a freshman can be difficult, Bystryckiis thankful for the support group around her that helped her ease into the role of a collegiate goalkeeper.

“Starting as a freshman was an eye-opener for sure but itfelt good to have a lot of the hard work I put in over the off-season pay off,” Bystrycki said. “I’m extremely grateful and couldn’t have done it without the help and support from all the goalkeepers and my trainers because they are the ones that pushed me.”

In her freshman season, Bystrycki was twice named the NJAC Rookie of the Week and twice named the Defensive Player of the Week. The Ewing, New Jersey native was tabbed as an All-NJAC honorable mention as well.

While the goal of any team is to win the last game of the season, Bystrycki feels that her team’s 2018 campaign was a step in the right direction and can be used as a building block going forward.

“From this season I have learned that the ‘family feeling’ of a team is so crucial and important to success,” Bystrycki said. “I have also learned to take it all one game at a time and focus on winning this one before thinking about the next, it helps with focusing in the moments where it matters.”

When it came to senior midfielder Corinne Dengel, making theAll-NJAC second-team is something that she feels would’t have been possible if not for the team around her.

Midfielder Carrine Dengel (senior) playing the ball off of her thigh. Photo Courtesy of Larry Levanti.

“Being named All-NJAC second-team is a true honor but I couldn’t have done it without my teammates by my side,” Dengel said.

For the Manahawkin, New Jersey native, she too was proud of her team’s performance this season and is happy that in her final year she was able to go out on a high note.

“I am so proud of how my team performed this season and overall, although our record may not show it, we had our most successful season in the years that I have been here,” Dengel said.“Every single girl worked so hard day in and day out for months and that is why we made it to the NJAC semifinals.”