The Rowan women’s soccer team is looking to bounce back from a rough 2-1 loss in the finale of New Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) play against The College of New Jersey (TCNJ) last Wednesday. The match was stolen from the Profs just before the 90th minute, as a header from the Lions cut Rowan’s chances of getting the top seed in the NJAC Championship Tournament to zero and giving them the second seed.

Fortunately, the second seed isn’t too bad, as you still get a bye week, giving the brown and gold the opportunity to re-energize to come back to the pitch and take down Kean University in another journey for an NJAC Championship title.

“We gave them the whole weekend off,” said head coach Scott Leacott. “[The bye week] gives some people some important rest for kids who have been logging 90-75 minutes per game. It also gives some of the players that don’t see a lot of playing, time to regain some fitness and regain some technical ability.”

Junior captain Darah Wagner said that the break not only gives the team time to rest up, but time to reflect on the TCNJ game and use it as motivation to come out strong in the playoffs.

“I think it was a good week to recover,” Wagner said. “It feels like we haven’t played in a really long time actually. So I think it’s going to help everyone be more excited to play, come Wednesday. And I think that the TCNJ game, being the last game, I think that it’s more motivation to come out with a win.”

Kean is ranked sixth in the NJAC and have an overall record of 5-7-6.

“I think they’re [Kean] going to try what they did last year,” Wagner said. “Playing a lot of defense and try to hold us to not score. But hopefully we can spread them out and score a couple of goals on them.”

Kean has only allowed 16 goals this season, good enough for fourth in the category in the conference. On the flip side, their 15 goals scored is the least among all NJAC teams, putting up less than one goal per game this season.

Despite the lack of sexiness that comes with their stats, the Cougars were able to shutout third-seeded Stockton University, 1-0, on Saturday to move into the semifinal against Rowan.

“They [Kean] want us to throw a ton of numbers forward,” Leacott said. “They work extremely hard. They are very disciplined in their defensive coverage. They had a big win on Saturday, so they are going to be very excited to come here and try to knock us off. So we’re expecting them to be very good.”

UPDATE:

The women’s soccer team defeated Kean University 3-0.

The Profs traveled to TCNJ for the NJAC Championship Final where they fell 1-0 in double-overtime. Lions’ Taylor Nolan headed the winning goal in off a crossbar deflection with just two minutes left in 2OT.

Rowan waits until Monday, Nov. 5 to see if they earn a bid to the NCAA Division III Championship Tournament. Selection takes place at 1:30 p.m. at ncaa.com.

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