We Are the Champions

Julie Doyle ’21, forward: We only had four places that we could go. It was the Athletic Excellence Center (where we trained), our houses, Walgreens, and Stevens Stadium (where we practiced).

Smith: We may be one of the only universities in the country who didn’t play in spring 2020 (because) Santa Clara County was the first county in America to shelter in place. So we are working our tails off in late July, beginning of August, and then pretty much the whole state of California was just on fire. For about 60 or 70 days in a row, we woke up and had to check the AQI (Air Quality Index) on our phone, hoping to have practice but checking the AQI every hour and working with sports medicine: Are we on or not? Can we practice for two hours or one hour? Can we play with 100 percent intensity or 50 percent intensity? Sometimes we would start planning a two-hour practice and 45 minutes into it, sports medicine would come over and say ‘you guys got to shut it down.’ It was a nightmare. So on top of COVID, we also now have the smoky air to deal with.

Nicolos: It was really difficult to be dealing with what we already dealt with in summer, and then on top of that going home and then having that sadness of seeing so many other soccer programs in the East playing.

Turnbow: I felt like I grew a lot during that time. Men’s soccer is just so high speed and they’re aggressive, I had to be able to jump in with them.

Sofia Jones ’21, defender: Marlee was in charge of small groups we called families, and each week she would give us a different challenge. So one week we had to re-create dishes from a Disney movie, so one group did Princess and the Frog and another group did Lady and the Tramp. Another week we had to get on a Zoom call and take the funniest screenshot. My team did The Bachelor, so people were in dresses, and there was host Chris Harrison, and there’s a couple of roses. We found a way to stay connected, even when we were apart.

Jones: Originally there was a little bit of doubt and fear, because we knew the bitter taste of having a season canceled because of COVID once, so you know that was sitting in the back of my head. But at the same time, we have this great opportunity. A lot of other teams haven’t been through a bubble. We know how to get through this situa- tion. We’re stronger and tougher, because of what we went through. I think it made us more well equipped and grateful to know that we had some idea of what was going to unfold in the next couple months.

Turnbow: Comparing our first time we came to Santa Clara in June to this, the second go-round, I was just very pleased to see that everyone was in such a healthier state of mind. And I think that we knew how to handle it a lot better. Everyone seemed genuinely happier.

Smith: BYU has the second-best winning percentage on their home field behind the North Carolina Tar Heels, so even in a normal year when you’re great, BYU is going to be a massive challenge. And it’s our third game of the year, it’s their ninth game of the year. They’ve had maybe seven weeks of practice, we’ve had maybe three.

Turnbow: I would say everyone at some point goes through a phase during the bubble where they’re just not feeling 100%, and I went through that phase around the USF game. I was just feeling isolated. I love being around my teammates but I was seeing them constantly, and typically in a regular year you’re able to hang out with other people outside the team but we couldn’t do that. I was just kind of feeling dour, and Jerry allowed me to take a couple days off from practice and just cheer from the sidelines, and I think that really helped me just take a step back and be able to recalibrate and get back on track. That was very pivotal for my mental health, which ends up translating into better physical performance on the field.

Jones: We had our selection show in the morning, and then we just went straight out to training and a light practice. During a drill, no one was around, no one tackled me. Just out of the blue, I ruptured my Achilles.

Smith: We waited a month between our last regular game and our first tournament game, and then oh, by the way, on the day we learned that we’re going to the NCAA tournament, a four-year starter, senior team captain, best voice on the field, ruptures her Achilles tendon. And so now we have to replace her as well. You couldn’t make this stuff up. If you wrote this movie script, somebody would throw it away. “You actually didn’t have to go through all that.”

Loera: There is a moment of, “Oh, gosh, can we do this? Can we pull together?” It was definitely a challenging moment for sure. But I think she did an awesome job of embracing the role of leader on the sidelines.

Jones: Maybe it’s one more thing they could play for.

Doyle: To be honest, we were dreading three weeks in a hotel room, but I think that, our team in particular, was probably more used to that environment than any other team in the country, because we are used to being in such a strict bubble. So it wasn’t that bad for us. We had this team room on the 20th floor and we got creative.

Jones: It was a multipurpose room. It was our snack room, it was our study hall, it was our Mario Kart arcade, it was our dining hall, so all of those things were going on at once. And that was really fun, especially for me. I was almost always up there doing rehab and someone would be there studying or playing a game, so I’d always have someone to cheer me on or talk to.

Izzy D’Aquila ’23, midfielder: One of the best things for us was we got a ton of good-luck videos from friends around campus and a couple of athletic teams, which was really great to see and got some teary eyes from everyone. We had so much support this whole time that we knew that we’d be coming home champions in everyone’s eyes, even if we didn’t win, which was awesome.

Smith: Our kids were challenged by being the underdog and challenged by coming from a (smaller) conference and challenged by being a smaller liberal arts school compared to some of the schools we’re playing. And so I think our kids have always had a little chip on their shoulder when it comes to playing these “big schools,” and they looked forward to it.

Menti: Leading up to like the bus ride to the locker room, I was just doing everything I could to control my nerves and just trying to think about, “Soccer is what I love to do,” and just trying to make this game as simple as I could.

Jones: It started with the rain. I feel like that really set the tone for the game. In a year that had so many crazy and unexpected turns, when it started raining I couldn’t help but let out a little laugh and think, “Oh, of course, here’s one more thing.” But I also thought if we could do everything else we did, what’s a little rain?

Smith: To be honest with you, I think Florida State out-coached us in the final. Their tactics were working better than our tactics, but the leadership of our student-athletes, the resiliency of our student-athletes, the toughness of our student-athletes and this attitude of, “We’re not going down today,” it’s amazing when you see that. It’s impossible to coach it, quite honestly. So many things have to come together. If you could bottle it up, you’d be a billionaire.

Turnbow: We always come into the huddle after a team scores on us and it’s like, “OK, let’s focus on the next play. We can get it back. There’s plenty of time. Don’t panic.” And I think we did a really great job of that.

Doyle: I probably didn’t help the team much when I had the ball, but I feel like I helped the team by being vocal. I was trying to talk to each person individually, like “Give me seven minutes and like just leave it all out here on the field, and I won’t be upset.”

FIRST ROUND, Doyle: It kind of relieved some pressure, knowing that they already had gone through penalty shootouts in the past two games, so (our goalie) had seen the way they kick their PKs and they now are thinking, “Should I change my PK? Should I go the other way?” I got the first kick, which is great—we always want to go first. What I’ve done ever since I can remember taking PKs is I would back up and then, when the whistles blows, I like to wait at least like 10-15 seconds, just to get in the goalie’s head, like, “When is she going to kick it?” And then I approached the ball, really, really slowly and I placed it where I wanted and then, luckily, the goalie dove the other way.

SECOND ROUND, Menti: I was trying every way to control my nerves. I was just focusing my breathing for five minutes. It was the most stressed I’ve ever been in my life. It was just the feeling like I just didn’t want to let everyone down, like my teammates, school, family, whatever, that kind of thinking. But I was confident in my PK. After 15 minutes of just straight nerves, I was just calm, just comfortable, you know. I’ve gone the same way (shooting the ball) the past two years and we’ve been practicing all tournament, so I knew I could do it.

Menti: No other county had as strict guidelines as we did. It’s just made every single win that much more rewarding because of how hard we put into being where we were. It took me a while for it to completely set in. Five or six days after (the championship game), I was still in shock. It’s still very hard to believe that we did that.

Smith: There’s 50 or 100 just completely valid reasons for our team not to win the championship, to opt out, give in, give up, settle, “Oh darn, sorry, it was out of our control.’’ And our staff never did it, and our players never did it. And that to me was just so, so impressive. It really only would have taken one or two people to settle and you don’t get the championship. Just nobody in our group settled.

Jones: It’s taught me so much about staying in the moment and enjoying the moment, because so many times I would think, “When is this bubble over? This has been so hard.” But seeing the alumni at our game cheering us on and being there with the girls that won the tournament really made me realize that someday we’re going to be those alumnae in the stands looking back on this experience.