by Carolyn Lamberson
It was a season of firsts for the Gonzaga University women’s soccer team. The magical year included a critical win over Santa Clara at home, clinching a program-first WCC Championship on the road at Pepperdine, and a program-first win in the NCAA tournament against the Idaho Vandals before a record crowd.
We talked with head coach Chris Watkins and team captains Lauren Towne (goalkeeper) and Kelsey Oyler (defender), who is the first GU women’s soccer player to be named second team All-American, and asked them to reflect on how the year went, their goals going forward and their excitement about soccer in Spokane.
(This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Q: When you started your preparations for this past season, did you have a sense that you were on the cusp of doing a lot of really great things?
Oyler: I think before the season, we knew that we had the capability to do a lot of great things. We spent a lot of time in our preseason, the weeks leading up to our games, going over our team goals and what we wanted to accomplish. And obviously, I think the top of our board was to make it to the NCAA tournament because GU hasn’t done that since 2005. And the last two years, we’ve been really close to going and have sat there on the selection show days and been pretty disappointed. And before the season, we really emphasized making that journey ourselves and putting it in our hands. We had it on our board in our locker room — like we’re leaving no doubt, we’re winning the WCC to get the automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. So I think before season, that was already on our mind.
Q: Beating Santa Clara at home – was that on the vision board too for the year? Did you think that was going to happen, or was that just kind of the icing on the cake?
Towne: I mean, we didn’t really plan out and look at the schedule who we’re going to beat. But it was “by any means necessary to get first” in our minds. So I mean, it was definitely icing on the cake. We had belief this year that that was something we were totally capable of. We’ve been really close, had close games with them in the past. So yeah, I think it was something that we knew we could handle. And it was great that everything was clicking that day and it transpired that way.
Q: I know that first tournament game against Idaho had a great home crowd. Has it been kind of heartening to see increased interest in the program as your success has grown over the past few seasons? Is it great to have more fans in the stands and to feel that support from the community?
Oyler: That was probably one of my favorite games, just in a sense of feeling the energy from the crowd. I think our marketing team did a super good job getting the word out to get people there. And I think people are excited because they hear, “NCAA tournament,” and they’re like, “Oh, we want to go to that game.” Even though it was freezing cold that day, it was super cool to see just everyone kind of come together. And hopefully that propels us in the next season to get more numbers for our regular season play.
Q: With the Spokane Velocity FC and the Spokane Zephyr FC beginning play next year, it feels like there’s a lot of soccer momentum in Spokane right now. Do you think that one is going to fuel the other and maybe build it up to where you get good sized crowds at some of your games next year?
Watkins: I think it’s possible. We need seats at our stadium. And it’s something that Gonzaga is working on. But, you know, we had 1,800 and some odd people (at the Idaho game) and we only had seats for about 250. People were standing around the stadium. In the (proposed) new stadium, the renderings have a little over 2,000 seats. And I think it’s very reasonable to assume that we can that we can fill that up, considering 1,800 people came in, and only 250 had a seat. And it was 36 degrees or whatever. Yeah, it’s a nice crowd. And we get good crowds anyways. This year, this year wasn’t our best. We had some crappy game times and weather and things. But the last couple of years we had been building quite nicely.
Q: Is the new stadium you reference going to be completely new or improvements to the stadium there on campus?
Watkins: It’s actually the same footprint. We have lights. We have the infrastructure around it. But it’s actually the seats.
Q: OK, so they’re building seating for Luger Field?
Watkins: Yes.
Q: Is that going to be ready for next season?
Watkins: No, no, we’re still getting funded and things. So it’s still got a ways to go.
Q: OK, so taking the success of this past season, your first WCC championship, your first NCAA playoff win in program history, a first placement on the second team All-American – congratulations, Kelsey. Where are you now? What’s on the vision board for next season? How do you build on that success?
Towne: It’s something I haven’t thought too much about. Right when we lost to UC Irvine (in the NCAA tournament second round), luckily I have another year, so my thoughts were definitely OK, how do we how do we do this again? How do we get to the same spot that we’re at? And I think we don’t stray too much from what we did this year. Like we mentioned before, everyone was super committed coming into this year. We came in early into the summer without the coaches and we’re training and we’re super methodical and intentional about planning the vision for our season. So I think we do that again. We start that early this upcoming summer. And I think as captains, we’re really thinking about how we can keep our team hungry and motivated.
Oyler: Not complacent.
Towne: We got a little taste of that feeling and I can bet everyone wants to taste that again.
Q: What kinds of things are you guys doing in the offseason, though, to maintain that team building and avoid that complacency, that you are allowed to do under NCAA rules?
Towne: Yeah, there’s not too much that we can do with the coaches right now. It’s pretty much relying on everyone’s intrinsic motivation. And I know as a team, it’s there. Like we just got done lifting, pretty much our full team was there without coaches, without that being a recommendation or anything like that. We took that upon ourselves to do ir.
Oyler: We have people down the gym playing futsal couple days a week.
Towne: Yeah, keeping things fun, keeping everyone active, kind of using this as a time to reset. But yeah, that’s awesome.
Q: Coach, is there going to be much turnover between this team and next year’s team? Are you getting back a pretty solid core group?
Watkins: We graduated two seniors, one of whom was a starter. The other wasn’t a starter, but played. But otherwise, we return 10 starters and young players who are really good and could have easily been starters as well. Dare I say, we should be significantly better next year.
Q: As young women playing soccer, are you excited about having professional soccer opportunities in communities like Spokane?
Oyler: I think it’s a super cool opportunity to bring more awareness to soccer in Spokane. And obviously, you hear like, “professional” behind it, people want to check it out. I’ve driven by the stadium quite a bit. It is beautiful. It’d be so cool to play there. And especially do it in a community where you play in your whole college career would be super cool.
Towne: I think it’s super cool, like Kelsey said, to just have soccer in Spokane. When you think of Spokane, you think of basketball and to try and shift that over to soccer would be pretty neat. I think we’re just always keeping our options open. I love this city. And it’s become home to me this past four years and to stick around in this area would be great. So it’s cool to have that opportunity and to have that to consider.
Q: Are you hoping to be able to check out some of the women’s games when they start this summer, if you’re going to be around?
Oyler: Yeah, I’m sure we probably will.
Towne: Yeah, I will be up here in July for captain’s training. So that’d be a cool thing we could do as a team.
Q: Going back to this past season, you know, among all the successes, do you each have a “This is the moment I’m going to remember when I’m old and grey” moment? What’s that moment for you guys?
Oyler: Malibu, California. Winning the WCC (at Pepperdine).
Towne: I actually have chills thinking about it.
Oyler: When that whistle blew and we realized we did it. Realizing that we didn’t have to sit there on the selection show and wonder if we’re going to hear our name called, doing something that Gonzaga women’s soccer has never done before, like, and we’re going to go down in history for being the first to do it. I feel like we knew we could do it all along, but actually doing it and seeing it and being there with everyone. We’re just such a close team. And it was crazy. It was so cool.
Towne: There’s too many moments like just within that day to try and pick one. Before the game, during the game, after game, there’s just little moments that I’ll always remember. But I do think I remember most about that day is being totally content going into that game, like not even being able to picture us losing.
Oyler: I’ve never experienced that. Like every single person on our team that day knew we were going to win. This game, everyone’s talking about how no one can picture us going home right now without winning. Everyone’s just like, we got this. You know, we have it. I’ve never experienced that in such a high-pressure game before.
Towne: It was high stakes in the sense that it was either we get everything we’ve ever wanted and we’ve left no doubt or we have a good chance of just sitting here and wondering and having the same thing happen to us that’s happened the past couple years. And so you’d think everyone would be so tense, but I don’t know what it was. It was our preparation and from the games before and starting in the summer, but it was so cool to be a part of and everyone rose to the occasion. And I think it was just our love for each other pouring out in that game and knowing that we were going to do whatever we had to do to come out on top. It was awesome.
Q: Sounds like things were really kind of firing on all cylinders.
Oyler: There were ups and downs (over the season), but I think those downs came at really good times to motivate us, to carry us through the rest of the season and never like let us get too high or too low. Like they kind of just reset us so we could keep going.
Q: Coach, you’ve been around the game for a long time. Do you see the trendlines for women’s soccer to continue going upward?
Watkins: When you’ve been around it as long as I have, you’ve seen leagues come and go, right? And the NWSL now, I don’t think there’s any debate on whether it’s going to stay or not. And for the previous WUSA and, you know, going back 15, 20 years, there was debate all along of whether or not the league was going to be around. And now, you know, franchises are getting sold for big dollars and the TV contracts are getting better. Attendance is getting better. So every trend is pointing the right direction, including Spokane. There’s lots of obvious growth now that can’t be denied. Where before it was a little bit of smoke and mirrors, it felt like now, now it seems a lot more real. Like Kansas City building their own stadium. It’s incredible. I mean, it’s an incredible stadium and that expenditure, surely the business folks who are doing that know what they’re doing and they believe they’re going to get a return on their investment. And so to spend the $70 million to do it and know they’re going to get the money back is an exceptional step in the right direction.
Q: It seems, too, that the Pacific Northwest has really embraced the women’s game. Both the Portland Thorns and the Seattle Reign are successful, winning teams, and now we’re adding Spokane and this USL Super League program.
Watkins: Yeah. The Pacific Northwest has always been a women’s soccer hotbed. The Portland Thorns has a great tradition, and the Portland and Seattle metro areas have great histories of promoting and supporting women’s soccer. So we’re in the right market. Spokane has had a lot of minor league professional teams come and go, on the men’s side. But I think the time is right. And certainly the investment is much deeper this time. Women’s soccer has a much stronger foothold than it used to. Well, it didn’t have one at all last time there was some semi-pro soccer here. So, all indications are that it should go really well.
