Erin Witte was disappointed after the ISU women’s soccer team finished second in the Big 12 conference standings last year.

After years of mediocrity, there is a new definition of success around the ISU soccer complex.

“[This season] I expect nothing but a ring on our finger,” Witte said. “Because we were so close last season, it hurts to look back and see if we would have done this different or done that different, we would have had the championship.”

//

An NCAA tournament berth capped off the best season in the program’s history in 2005. It was an 11-7-3 campaign that saw records fall and pages turn for a team that routinely struggled with a sub-.500 record.

Witte, a junior forward, is one of six returning starters from that squad, a group which coach Rebecca Hornbacher hopes trailblazed a new way of thinking.

“We always want to put ourselves in a position to win a Big 12 championship, and we want to prove that we deserve and we’re worthy of making the NCAA tournament again,” Hornbacher said.

“We are raising our expectations.”

Before last season, the Cyclones never had a winning record in Big 12 competition, but went 6-3-1 and contended for a conference crown.

Had it not been for a loss to Baylor – the second-worst conference team last year – and a 1-1 tie with Missouri, who knows what could have been.

“But that gives us even more drive this season to just work hard in practice and play hard,” Witte said.

Despite the team’s success, Iowa State was picked to finish ninth this season in a preseason coaches’ poll – the same prediction as of one year ago.

The offseason loss of six of the soccer team’s best players – three to graduation, three to transfer – is presumably to blame.

Kate Kirwan, Jess Villhauer, Amanda Purple, Beth Passman and Stephanie Kaphingst join Witte as returning starters, while Leslie Hill, Hannah Swanbom and Erin Tudor saw extensive time as reserves last season.

“We have an absolutely tremendous group of frontrunners and very dynamic, creative midfielders who are going to create a lot of scoring opportunities and be a threat,” Hornbacher said.

“I think our overall team speed is at an all-time high. We smashed a lot of our records we had in different team speed, agility and conditioning tests coming in this preseason, so I really think well see a lot of goals being scored.”

Kirwan, who along with Villhauer compose the Cyclone senior class, is a four-year starter who leads the backline – a group that looks to take pressure off freshman goalkeeper Ann Gleason.

Kaphingst scored four goals last season, while Hill had three off the bench.

Nine incoming freshmen make up this year’s recruiting class, a group which was ranked as the second best in the conference after the teams completed the process.

“With the freshman, we are going to ask that they act as if they are upperclassmen from the beginning,” Hornbacher said.

“These freshman are a really talented and very athletic group, dynamic soccer players, and they are really going to contribute a lot in all positions on the field.”

Other resources:

FROM ISD: Soccer team will conduct open tryouts