This season has been a roller coaster for women's soccer team Head Coach Phil Pincince - one he's not hoping to get off yet.
"It has been a great ride," Pincince said. "Every season is a new ride and you never know where it's going to take you. This ride in 2006 has been a lot of fun and it's not over."
Though they can no longer win the Ivy League title and receive an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, the Bears' postseason hopes remain alive at 9-3-3 overall.
Two weeks into this year's campaign, the Bears had sprinted out of the gates with a tie and a win against ranked opponents. But just as soon as they cracked the national polls at No. 25 in late September, the entire team went into a funk. The high-scoring Brown offense did not record a goal in three straight games spanning two weeks. Bruno had just one point in the Ivy League after a controversial 1-0 loss to Dartmouth and a scoreless tie to Columbia on Sept. 29.
But they haven't lost since.
The Bears responded to the difficult position they put themselves in earlier in the season by going undefeated in October and rattling off 18 goals in five wins and two ties.
So what changed?
"The ability to read each other," Pincince said. "I'm talking about from starter to substitute, we have worked hard to get everyone on the same page and our players have done a great job learning about each other."
The statement game came against the United States Military Academy. Co-captain and leading goal scorer Kathryn Moos '07 snapped the team's scoreless skid five minutes into the contest, and her classmate, midfielder Jill Mansfield '07, put the game away with a second half goal. Forward Lindsay Cunningham '09 received assists on both plays.
But while the win against Army was important, Mansfield said she feels the team really came together, "in the game against Princeton when we were moving as a unit." Mansfield and Moos each scored twice, with Cunningham supplying two of the assists in the 4-0 win that launched the Bears back into title contention.
The Bears then won three straight Ivy League games and defeated in-state rival University of Rhode Island before heading into its crucial match-up with the University of Pennsylvania last Saturday.
At Penn, the Bears were just one minute and 36 seconds away from escaping with their Ivy League title hopes intact when they blew a 2-1 lead in the face of gusting winds.
Two overtimes failed to produce a winner, and the team had to settle for a 2-2 tie, a long bus ride out of Philadelphia and a third-place finish in the Ivy League.
"We were hoping for a win and that something might happen with Columbia and Dartmouth," Pincince said, "but that was not meant to happen. You had to be disappointed. That's the ultimate, the Ivy League championship."
During the Bears' unbeaten October, Moos and Mansfield combined for an astounding 15 goals in six games.
With Mansfield and Moos' heroics, it has been easy to forget about Cunningham, last year's leading goal scorer and the heir apparent of Brown's offense.
"I think she's had an amazing season," Pincince said. "Remember that with any goal there needs to be an assist."
Over Moos and Mansfield's hot streak, Cunningham has rung up six assists, all on goals by the two seniors, and two goals of her own.
"She fights for every ball," added Moos who has scored off of five Cunningham passes this year. "She's a great player and will continue to be an offensive threat."
Cunningham still has two more years to share the offense with the likes of first-year standouts Melissa Kim '10 and Bridget Ballard '10. But for Moos and Mansfield, senior day against Yale looms Saturday at 1 p.m. on Stevenson Field.
The team's field generals, however, see the contest in an entirely different light.
Mansfield, who has dazzled fans for four years with her flip throw-ins, said she will be emotional come Saturday. "I've already said I'm going to cry," she said.
The stoic Moos replied, "I just hope it doesn't distract me from the game."
Moos may have a point. Should the Bears defeat the defending Ivy League Champion Bulldogs, they would have 10 wins, including one over a ranked opponent (Boston College), against just three loses. Pincince hopes that it will be too tough a case for the NCAA to pass up when it announces the at-large berths next Monday.
"This team has stayed focused all year," Pincince said. "And here we are, one game remaining, and we're all on the same page and we want to hear Monday ... that we're going on."
