The hardest part about losing Sunday's game was not the fact that the women's soccer team wouldn't get to contend for the NESCAC Championship next weekend. It was the fact that the careers of its seven seniors, who have led the team all season long, came to a screeching halt Sunday afternoon.
"Right now, I feel like someone just died," senior co-captain Becky Greenstein said. "This is the best team we've had in four years and everyone really put their heart into the team. It's going to be very hard to leave."
"That was definitely the hardest part about losing today," coach Martha Whiting added. "Those seven girls have contributed so much of themselves for the past four years. We're a family, and it's so hard because people you see every day for three months you're not going to see anymore."
Led by co-captains Sarah Gelb and Greenstein, the senior class was the heart and soul of a squad that started off the season slowly, but picked it up during the latter half of the year. For the underclassmen, the pain of the loss to Williams was magnified that much more because it was the last time this team would be playing together.
"This is the best team I've ever been on," junior Ariel Samuelson said. "We had the strongest class of seniors I've ever seen, and they're going to be impossible to replace. I can't even think about what it's going to be like next year without them, and that was definitely the worst part of losing today."
It started with the defense, as fullbacks Catherine Benedict and Alina Schmidt, and goalie Meg McCourt led a back four that surrendered just 17 goals in 14 games, including a stretch of three shutouts in four games in the heart of their NESCAC season.
Gelb, Greenstein and Jen Baldwin led a young offense to much success over the season. Despite the team's early struggles to put the ball in the net, the group of seniors led the charge to a 7-1-1 October where the squad outscored its opponents 18-10.
And you can't forget about Jess Gluck, who was unable to play the entire season due to injury, but nevertheless acted as the single most important motivating force on the sidelines game in and game out.
Perhaps the most profound effect this year's senior class had was its influence on this year's freshman: Martha Furtek, Lauren Fedore, Joelle Emery and Anne Benedict. By season's end, Furtek and Emery were mainstays in the starting lineup, with Fedore and Benedict filling in effectively off the bench.
"It was really tough coming in as a freshman, not knowing anybody," Furtek said. "At first I was really nervous, but all the seniors were so welcoming that it made the transition a lot easier. We're really going to miss them next year."
Gelb succinctly summed up the thoughts of the team:
"We all love this game and each other so much, and it's going to be a rough second semester."
