LAKELAND, Fla- After completing a 14-4-2 season last year highlighted by six NAIA Top 25 wins and a trip to the NAIA National Tournament Second Round, No. 11 Southeastern women's soccer team will return 17 members from last year's squad.
Head coach
Caleb Roberts stated, "I think the strengths of the team this year comes from the maturity of the returners. We have a good core of players coming back who have put forward effort to push the program and continue moving forward. They worked hard over the spring and summer to put themselves into leadership positions."
Among those key returners are 2022 starters
Naira Lopez,
Makayla Peddycoart,
Ramsey Watkins,
Karissa King, and
Alivia Knapp.
Lopez led the Fire offense last season with 11 goals and five assists and was named First Team All-SUN Conference while Watkins tallied five goals and four assists, landing her on the Honorable Mention All-Conference team. King was also an offensive spark, recording four goals and five assists in her first season with the Fire after transferring from Vanderbilt University to earn Second Team All-Sun Conference.
Peddycoart and Knapp were key components to a Fire defense that held their opponents to 0.85 goals and 18.4 shots per game.
Other key returners consist of Second Team All-SUN selection,
Ariadna Lozano who was second on the team in goals with seven and recorded three assists after playing in 19 games, 18 of which were off the bench.
Madelyn Davidson also enters her sophomore season after a successful freshman season where she saw time in 17 contests, scoring two goals and assisting on two more.
"Madelyn and Ariadna are both returning sophomores after a successful freshman campaign," said Roberts. "They have improved their game and become stronger in the past few months."
Coupled with the core group of returners, the Fire will add 10 freshmen and five transfers.
Among those are graduate transfers are
Viktoria Lederer and
Evelina Von Euler.
Lederer spent four seasons at Emmanuel College where she accumulated 62 games played and 58 starts, scoring 11 goals and assisting on two more.
Euler spent the 2019 season at the University of Charleston where she saw time in 12 games and scored two goals and assisted on two. She then spent the 2021 and 2022 seasons at Azuza Pacific where she totaled 13 games played and was named the PacWest Player of the Week on August 30
th.
The season will begin on August 30
th as the Fire host Brewton-Parker at 5:30 p.m.
