ORU women’s soccer players named as Summit League players to watch; Golden Eagles picked to finish 4th
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The Oral Roberts women’s soccer team was picked fourth in the 2023 Summit League women’s soccer preseason coaches’ poll released Tuesday by league officials. Gabrielle Abbey and Samantha Guzman were named Players to Watch.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The Oral Roberts women’s soccer team was picked fourth in the 2023 Summit League women’s soccer preseason coaches’ poll released Tuesday by league officials. Gabrielle Abbey and Samantha Guzman were named Players to Watch.
First-year head coach Julianne Sitch has an abundance of key players back for the Pioneers’ regular season title defense. Her squad will be anchored by a quartet of graduate students that have racked up numerous all-league accolades throughout their careers. That foursome includes forwards Camryn MacMillan and Sydney Sharp along with midfielder Kaitlyn Glover and defender Hannah Gallegos.
The Denver Pioneers have made the tournament title game in six of the last seven years, hoisting the trophy three times (2017, 2018 and 2020). A season ago, DU recorded an 11-4-4 overall ledger and went 8-0-1 against league foes en route to their fifth straight regular season title.
The South Dakota State Jackrabbits are coming off a 2022 campaign that saw them post an impressive 131-5 overall record and a 7-0-2 league mark. SDSU was the last unbeaten team in all of Division I women’s soccer a year ago and head coach Brock Thompson has led the Jackrabbits to a 45-4-8 mark in Summit League play through his first six seasons in Brookings.
Thompson returns senior forward Maya Hansen, who was named the 2022 Summit League Offensive Player of the Year. She led the league in scoring with 27 points and goals with 11, six of which came against conference foes.
Omaha (48 points) was selected third after capturing the program’s first Summit League tournament title and NCAA Tournament berth in 2022. The third-seeded Mavericks won the tournament title at home, setting the attendance record for a Summit League championship match with 748 in attendance at Caniglia Field. Four points behind Omaha was tournament runner-up ORU (44 points), who earned a spot in the championship final for the first time since 2016 and did so under the direction of first-year head coach Austin Risenhoover.
North Dakota State was picked to finish fifth with 36 points, while South Dakota secured sixth with 25 points. North Dakota tallied 20 points to land in seventh, while St. Thomas (19 points) was a point behind in eighth. Missouri-Kansas City rounded out the preseason poll with 11 points.
