By Christian Mosqueda
Staff Writer
With limited success in its previous four seasons the women’s soccer team’s 2016 season can be described in two words: epic collapse.
The Dominguez Hills women’s soccer team collapsed in the final half of the season, after having one of the better starts to their campaign in recent years.
CSUDH began the 2016 season with shutout road victories against BYU-Hawaii, Hawaii Pacific University and Chaminade University.
The Toros’ first home loss came on Sept. 12 against Simon Fraser University, in an overtime 1-0 thriller, after a scoreless 90 minutes.
The women’s soccer team would bounce back and put a string of wins together, besting four of the following five matches, winning the majority in overtime.
Head Coach Aileen Nasypany attributes the Toros’ success up to this point to the team’s fitness, as well their passion to play for each other.
The beginning of the road games is when things began to really to turn sour.
“It went downhill really fast. We had a lot of injuries, and a lot of factors that came into play,” said sophomore midfielder Monica Scudieri. “Away we just weren’t doing very well.”
The Toros would lose all but one of the remaining matches, including home losses to Cal State San Bernardino on Oct. 21, and Cal Poly Pomona on Oct. 23, both by the minimum 1-0 difference.
When discussing what they could do better for next year Scudieri addressed that their defense is solid but hopes that the recruitment team can acquire more offensive players to offset some of the potential injuries that can arise later in the season.
Midfielder and graduating senior Sami Feinstein said this season was an improvement from last year and that the women’s program has progressed.
“It’s been a lot of fun,” she said. “The program is left in good hands.”
As for a message to next season’s team: “Keep grinding,” she said. “Keep working. Things will fall into place. (The team) will grow and get better.”
The Toros ended their season Oct. 29 with a 1-0 win at Humboldt State with a goal from senior captain Kendra Serrano. The women’s soccer team finished with an (8-9-0) overall record, an improvement from last years (4-13-1) record.
