College of Saskatchewan Huskies captain Alyssa D’Agnone has been a pressure over her 4 seasons with the ladies’s soccer crew, along with her 24 profession targets rating third all-time in program historical past.
Getting into the 2025 Canada West season, nonetheless, the striker/winger from Lethbridge, Alta., is feeling a mixture of feelings getting into her closing 12 months of eligibility with the crew.
“It’s undoubtedly bittersweet,” mentioned D’Agnone. “It got here actually quick, it looks like yesterday I used to be simply in my first 12 months. There’s numerous us fifth-years, so we’re simply attempting to benefit from each second.”
D’Agnone is one in every of seven pending graduates for the Huskies, as they start their 2025 marketing campaign at residence on Saturday afternoon towards the Mount Royal Cougars.
It’ll even be the final dance in a Huskies uniform for fellow striker Marie Kilcher, forwards Tia Lecox and Naleya Kobussen, and defenders Taryn Izsak, Georgina Gannitsos-Clark and Anna Oliver.
They’re a gaggle of soon-to-be graduates which star midfielder Nammi Nguyen mentioned helps to gasoline the crew’s push in direction of a Canada West championship this fall.
“So many of those senior gamers are folks that I can’t think about the crew with out,” mentioned Nguyen. “It’s going to be so bizarre subsequent 12 months with out them, so we actually wish to make it depend this 12 months.”
Together with the group of pending graduates, the Huskies this season will see 10 rookies enter the lineup which head coach Jerson Barandica mentioned he’s inspired by.
He praised the combo of veteran management and youthful power into the lineup over the course of the Huskies’ exhibition schedule.
“We’ve had an incredible pre-season,” mentioned Barandica. “In my thoughts, most likely probably the greatest we’ve had right here in 10 years as a head coach. We’re simply trying ahead to it, we’re excited and we will’t wait to get began.”
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Final 12 months, the Huskies had been one of many prime groups within the Prairie Division ending third with a 7-2-5 report to qualify for playoffs for a twelfth consecutive season.
Shedding simply twice getting into playoffs final 12 months, Barandica is urgent this 12 months’s roster to take care of that very same degree of consistency.
“After we get into video games we belief that our coaching has ready us for that,” mentioned Barandica. “A theme of this 12 months is we don’t wish to rise to the event, we wish to fall to our habits.
“Our habits present day by day in coaching and it’s been a pleasure to educate.”
The following step for the Huskies in 2025 will probably be vaulting again into the Canada West’s closing 4, after bringing residence a convention bronze medal following the 2023 marketing campaign.
Ranked sixth within the convention’s pre-season coaches ballot, it’s a spot the Huskies are aiming to return to and break into contender standing.
“We’re clearly excellent, however we nonetheless have that final degree to hit and we’re nonetheless form of seen as underdogs,” mentioned Nguyen.
“We noticed the swimming pools and we’re sixth place, which I believe is an efficient place to be. You don’t need an excessive amount of strain, however we all know that we will hit a lot increased.”
Whereas the purpose of enjoying for a Canada West medal is a transparent driver for the crew in 2025, D’Agnone is fast to level out the rise of gifted applications throughout the league from the UBC Thunderbirds going undefeated en path to a nationwide championship, to the Trinity Western Spartans and Calgary Dinos fielding robust rosters this fall.
“I believe it’s actually necessary to imagine in our means, however not underestimate different groups that we’re enjoying,” mentioned D’Agnone. “I believe each crew on this league is nice, so now we have to point out up day by day if we wish to beat them.
“To be the perfect, you must beat the perfect.”
In accordance with Barandica, the purpose will probably be to stability a perception in their very own play with the truth that challenges are definitely to reach from different Canada West titans in 2025.
However he added it begins with the tradition the crew has constructed and the veteran group decided to place their finest effort ahead earlier than the ultimate whistle on a few of their prime stars’ collegiate careers.
“I believe it begins with not being afraid to say we wish to win,” mentioned Barandica. “Having that confidence and that drive to wish to that that closing step and win a [Canada West], we all know that to win that you must be very clear with the main points.”
The Huskies will open the 2025 Canada West season at 2 p.m. on Saturday, welcoming the Mount Royal Cougars to Griffiths Stadium, earlier than closing out the weekend on Sunday at 2:30 p.m. with a tilt towards the Calgary Dinos.
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