After having their shares of ups and downs, the Southern Oregon University soccer team is now reflecting on their success from a 9-6-3 2012 season.

“I think we feel pretty good about it,”  said SOU Head Coach Jon Clement, “we’ve definitely established ourselves as a top team not only in our conference but nationally too.  Getting into the conference semis again is a good mark too; as is the third straight winning season, so we’re on the right path for sure.”

The Raiders started the season 4-0-1, outscoring opponents 18-5, and recorded two shutouts in a pan of five games.  Confidence was riding high, momentum was on their side and all was good in Ashland.

They battled hard against fifth ranked Concordia of California, 14th-ranked Westmont and sixth-ranked Concordia of Oregon.

“I think we all feel pretty confident when we go into games against top 20 competition, in that we’re completely capable of competing at and against that level.” Clement said of his team, “We set high expectations for ourselves, so fairly I say we all miss playing right now and would very much like to be one of the teams that’s still going.”

And then the bottom fell out, in their next eight games Southern Oregon went 2-5-1 and were middle of the pack in the Cascade Collegiate Conference with a 6-5-2.

With four games left, the Raiders were several points out of first place and needed to be in the top four to make it to the CCC Tournament play two weeks later.

Something needed to be done to help re-kindled the motivation, the determination and persistance they once had, to finish strong.

Enter Leadership.

“I felt our leadership was outstanding. we’re really lucky to have captains/upperclassmen that are stellar in every sense of the word; that’s one main reason why we were able to pick ourselves up well after a couple of disappointing losses during the year,” Clement started with an hint of surprised in his voice,

With the help of leadership, faced with mounting injuries throughout the season; the ladies from Southern Oregon finished the regular season with a 3-0-1 in their last four games behind senior Stephanie Carr, whom scored four of her 13 season goals during the span.

Juile Zawzow, Stacy Hamer, and Megan McArthur connected on the  four SOU goals during this span to outscore opponents eight to two.

Defensively, the Raiders had help from goalies Kelsey Clement and Katelyn Allen, whom allowed two goals and two shutouts to help the Raiders clinch a berth in the Cascade Collegiate Conference tournament for the third straight year.

Five days after capping a stunning turn of events, the Raiders were faced with the challenge of facing the Knights of Concordia.

During the game, the Raiders battled for their season and playoff lives as they kept Concordia to one goal for the game.

But for the Raiders that day, that one goal was one goal too many as they were eliminated and their season ended 1-0.

“We try hard to play ‘the beautiful game’ and many times spectators commented that our collective style was really good to see,” started Clement, “but it takes a bigger perspective and frankly some guts to go about it the more creative way, so i’m really proud of our group for sticking to the idea.”

Moving forward, the Raiders will be without four starters, including Carr, heading into the 2013 season.  As with any sporting team, sporting season; you remind confident and focused.

“The offseason is always about focusing on improving, that’s no different now.  We have a number of players who didn’t play that much, they’re all good and they trained really well, so I’m excited to see them take advantage of the opportunity to get more match minutes,” said Clement.

Heading into the offseason, Southern Oregon will hope to improve on finishing up chances and set up pieces so they can prove that they are indeed the better team out their game in and game out.

“We had tons of games this year where fairly I felt we were clearly the better team but for whatever reason we just couldn’t take chances and separate ourselves, so that’s a point of emphasis for sure.” Clement said,   “We just want to keep playing a great, fun, attractive and exciting style.”