All Rouge: Catching Up with the DCFC Women

The college soccer women's season came to a close with Florida State absolutely beating the crap out of Stanford, 5-1. Michigan bowed out early after sweating out Selection Sunday, and little else of relevance to this blog happened in the tournament (MSU did pretty good, UCLA took a huge first round upset, yeah we care about that now).

The next women's soccer games I care deeply about won't be at U-M Soccer Stadium. No, first I can look forward to the Detroit City Football Club womens side's return to Keyworth Stadium. DCFC plays in USLW, which is a summer league largely composed of college players. There were plenty of exciting storylines for fans of Le Rouge to follow this college season, and given that we're still a good two weeks out from the next time any of the Wolverine teams I write about do anything, I thought this was as good of a time as any to take a look at what some of the DCFC women did during their college seasons.

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The MAC, but Mostly Bowling Green

The DCFC women's roster last season was stacked with players from Bowling Green. Five different Falcons suited up for City, besting Western Michigan's four. As far as active college players go, no other college team had more than two players on the DCFC roster.

The Falcons were led by All-Mid American Conference forward Brynn Gardner, who scored six goals. Of those six, three of them were assisted by players that had been with Brynn in Hamtramck last summer. Her main scoring partner was Ellie Pool, who assisted on two of Brynn's goals. One highlight came against Ball State, when in a 1-1 game with under a minute to go, Emilie Gardner, Brynn's sister, found the ball in the box and pass it to Pool, who then found Brynn ready to put the game-winner home. Three City players involved on the goal, its at about 2:10 here.

When it was all said and done, 16 of BGSU's 26 goals on the season had a City player record either the goal or an assist. Rylee Clark added her assist on a Brynn Gardner goal against Loyola Chicago. City's last player for Bowling Green was keeper Madison Vukas, who played a number of second halves for the Falcons as part of an unusual "give each keeper a half" setup that they frequently employed.

The high water mark for City players on the pitch at the same time came on September 24th in a scoreless draw against Western Michigan, when all five City Falcons joined the Broncos' Drew Martin and Emily Pagett to begin the second half. Pagett was an important contributor to Western this season, starting 16 of 19 games with four goals and four assists. Martin added a goal and two assists herself. Two other City alums, Kayla Welchel and Madison Salzenstein, also played for the Broncos this season, recording seven and two appearances respectively.

Both BGSU and WMU received byes to the MAC tournament semifinals, where both lost. Western fell to Kent State, while BGSU lost to Ohio. That Ohio squad had two City players on it, Rayann Pruss and Maia Soulis. Soulis started all 22 games on the Bobcats' back line, while Pruss added 19 starts of her own and appeared in the rest of the matches.

The two BGSU/Ohio matches couldn't quite reach the "seven players at once" mark the WMU contest hit, but six players at once is pretty good, with Pruss and Soulis appearing with various combinations that were each missing one of the City Falcon Five (though they all included Vukas). Ohio went on to beat Kent State in the MAC Championship before taking a first round loss to Michigan State in the NCAA Tournament.

Elsewhere in the MAC, Northern Illinois rostered City keeper Deighton Weimer, who made one appearance for the Huskies.

The Big Ten, but Mostly Michigan

Hey! This is a Michigan blog! Let's talk about Michigan! There was only one Wolverine on last summer's DCFC roster, but she made a big impact on Michigan's season. Avery Peters led the Wolverines in minutes this season, starting every single game. Her four assists tied for the team lead, and in one of Michigan's matchups with other DCFC players, Peters (wearing #25 in the video below) assisted on the game winner over Western Michigan. Emily Pagett would also grab an assist in this game, which ended 3-2 to the Wolverines.

Peters played 90 minutes in the only Big Ten match between two City players, as did Illinois' Ella Karolak. Karolak didn't just go 90 in that match, she was on the field for every minute the Illini played this season. Karolak was named the team's defensive MVP, and tallied one assist.

Michigan, as you may be aware, missed the Big Ten Tournament but snuck into the NCAA Tournament, losing to Princeton in the first round. Illinois also missed the Big Ten Tournament, ending their season. The only other rostered DCFC player in the Big Ten was MSU's Adelle Francis, who redshirted as a freshman and did not appear.

She's Just Ken... na White

Perhaps my favorite DCFC player of all time gets her own section. After four years at, you guessed it, Bowling Green, Kenna White transferred to Mississippi State to see what life in a major conference is like. Overall, she acquitted herself quite well under the big lights of... oh that's boring it's just called the MSU Soccer Field. White spent most of her season as a sub, but played at least 30 minutes in every single one of the Bulldogs' matches. White made notable starts in the SEC Semifinals (a loss to Arkansas) and the first round of the NCAA Tournament (a win over Providence).

In the second round of the NCAA Tournament, with the Bulldogs trailing 1-0 to Brown in the 68th minute, White came on. Less than one minute later, Kenna chipped the keeper, scoring the equalizer in her first NCAA Tournament goal. (Unfortunately the video is kinda bad.) They scored the go-ahead goal seven minutes later and qualified for a program-first Sweet Sixteen. That is where their season would end, against Stanford.

Everyone Else

Some quick hits on DCFC players not mentioned above:

• Faith Weber led Utah Valley in scoring, and was second in the WAC with 16 goals. Utah Valley won the WAC regular season, but fell in the WAC Tournament.
• Eliza Fisher made 11 appearances with 1 assist for American University.
• Lauren Moraitis made sporadic appearances as a sophomore at Cincinnati.
• Brynn White made 10 appearances for Detroit, including 14 minutes against BGSU.
• Joyelle Washington was rostered by both City and Georgia last season, but made no appearances for either. I suspect injury but can not find anything to prove that.

Hope you enjoyed our little side-trip into Le Rouge. I will probably write about them some once summer comes, but no promises. If you're a City person who roots for Michigan, subscribe! We have a fun time.