Team leadership is a crucial component to any roster, and the Sacramento State women’s soccer program understands the benefits that come with it.
The Hornets (2-2) boasts nine upperclassmen in its starting lineup – including one sophomore and one freshman – which makes for a group that 10th-year coach Randy Dedini believes is built to handle the adversity of two double-overtime losses to San Jose State and Hawaii earlier in the season.
“The girls have put out a fabulous effort in every single game. To come up short in two of those games against good teams in double overtime is tough to swallow because you feel we can easily be undefeated right now, but we’ve come up short,” Dedini said. “I think for this group it’s making us mentally tougher right now and … that’s one thing about this group is they’ll fight to the end so we’re going to continue to get better from these loses. We’re playing good soccer so there’s no doubt the wins are going to come.”
This upbeat attitude has resonated with the players, such as senior forward Adaurie Dayak, who has witnessed the Hornets’ steady improvement dating back to her first season in 2013.
“We have a lot of veterans on this team. We’re clicking a lot more and we understand each other’s movements on-and-off the ball,” Dayak said. “We just play a lot better … the whole team, since we’re all veterans throughout the lineup, we’ll have a lot of [cohesion].”
This solidarity was tested less than three minutes into the first game of the season against Cal State Bakersfield (Aug. 19) as the Hornets lost senior goalkeeper Molly McConnell to injury, which propelled sophomore Destiny Butcher into the starting role.
Butcher accumulated five saves to help Sac State win its season opener 2-0 and then proceeded to tie the record for most saves in one game in program history against Hawaii, in which Butcher stopped 14 shots from entering the goal post.
“For me it’s a huge accomplishment coming back from last year where I broke a finger in the Idaho State game and it was really a setback for me, but coming into [this season] being Student-Athlete of the Week and getting 14 saves was huge … and I couldn’t do it without my team because they’re incredible,” Butcher said. “I also think it helps to have 13 seniors and seven juniors … the maturity on the field is incredible with how we talk and move the ball together and it really helps when you have an older team especially with all the seniors we have.”
Butcher and her Sac State teammates have since added another shutout victory to the team’s record after defeating BYU-Hawaii on Aug. 27 by the score of 1-0 in its third consecutive overtime performance.
Dedini, who led the Hornets to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history in 2007 and has twice been named Big Sky Coach of the Year, views the veterans on the team as the reason for his optimism despite a 2-2 overall record.
“The other teams we won championships with were very similar in that we had a lot of talent and we had great leadership. This team has a lot of potential to be a championship caliber team,” Dedini said. “Plus the teams I’ve coached in the past have had excellent chemistry, the ability to score goals, desire to defend their own goal and with that combination of strengths this team can go a long way.”
Sac State’s next opponent will be Causeway Cup rival UC Davis – who haven’t lost to the Hornets since 2006 – at 4 p.m. on Sept. 2 at the Hornet Soccer Field.
The matchup will represent the last opportunity for Dayak and the 13 seniors on the Sac State roster to defeat UC Davis and improve the program’s 1-7-2 record against the Aggies dating back to 2006.
“It’s a huge deal. We have Kayla [Collins] on our team, who transferred from Davis, and it’ll be a really big deal for us to put a couple in the back of the net and win that game,” Dayak said. “We have a lot of people and family members that are coming to that game because we know how important it is to beat this rival. It’s really important to our team because we haven’t been able to and I know this year we will be able to.”
