After losing in the first round of the National Collegiate Athletic Association Championship tournament last year, the Chico State women’s soccer team is looking to make improvements to ensure their spot in the National Championship in the upcoming season.

The team started off 0-4 last season but finished strong pushing their way into the NCAA Championship Tournament with hopes of going to the National Championship. Despite a strong battle the team fell short losing to Concordia 0-3.

After an unfortunate end to their season last year, the team is looking to bounce back and work on improvements in the off season to better their chance at going past the first round of playoffs.

Sophomore forward Jordan Doukakis mentions the new motivation the team has to start the new season off stronger than before in order to ensure a spot come playoff time.

“We want to start off on a better record because last season we started 0-4 and then turned it around. This year we want to start off better,” Doukakis said. “Coach always says that we’re known for our end of the year push, so we always do well at the end of the season. We just want to become more consistent from start to finish so we can make it again to the NCAA conference tournament.”

Along with tackling a better start to the season, the team has been working on their commitment skills both individually and as a team. Coach Kim Sutton mentions that this year’s team is very young with half of them being true freshmen.

With the team being so young, she mentions working on commitment as a team will take the players to a higher level.

“We read a book always in the spring to try and develop something that we feel needs strengthening within the team. It’s odd because this is by far one of the most selfless committed teams we have had in all my years coaching. But the reason we chose to read the commitment continuum was just to give them clarity about why they are doing something and getting them more invested,” Sutton said.

When it comes to experience, there is a gap between players given that half the team are freshmen. With that said, Coach Sutton really focuses on getting the younger players to show their commitment so they can reach the level they need to be at for the upcoming season.

She mentions how working on boosting commitment from freshmen as well as other players who traveled with the team last year but did not play is of importance to ensure they know what they need to do to succeed in the upcoming season.

“We’ve been continuing a little of personal growth this spring with individual goals rather than the team because the team was so selfless and a very bonded team.”

The team has played a handful of spring scrimmages in the past couple months to gear up for the upcoming season where they’ve recorded two wins, two loses, and one tie.

Pre-season play begins in mid August when the team looks to work towards their goal of starting off stronger come regular season play as well as continuing to stay committed as a team to ensure a playoff run.

Katalina Santamaria can be reached at [email protected] or @katalinaleanet on Twitter.