AMHERST — Jason Dowiak and his staff came into the 2019 season with an attacking mindset.
The hope was that UMass would take another jump in Dowiak’s second year at the helm of the women’s soccer program after all the team accomplished last season. And that potential was evident early, especially when the Minutewomen defeated Pittsburgh at home on Sept. 1 and tied Tennessee in Amherst two weeks later.
But as quickly as UMass was scoring goals, it was also conceding them, leading to some disappointing and frustrating losses and ties early in the season. Dowiak admitted it was probably too ambitious for the staff to have that type of mindset with a young, inexperienced team, especially given the fact the Minutewomen are starting four freshmen and a sophomore transfer.
Now that the group has had time to jell, though, the Minutewomen are seeing the results of the hard work. In the last month, UMass has gone 5-1-1 to surge into the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic 10 Tournament. The Minutewomen easily dispatched No. 6 Fordham, 4-0, on Sunday to put the program back in the semifinals for the first time since 2013.
The opponent on Friday is George Washington, which clipped UMass, 3-2 in overtime, in the team’s regular season meeting on Oct. 3. Since that defeat, Dowiak said his team has a better grasp on how UMass wants to play and is starting to execute that vision on both ends of the field.
“We’ve gotten a lot more comfortable – tactically speaking – with how we want to create chances for ourselves,” Dowiak said. “We’ve also gotten a lot of production from a lot more players in the last month, we’re starting to get a lot more production from our wide players, too.”
At the heart of the Minutewomen’s success are the young players, all of whom have made a major impact in their first season at UMass. Freshman forward Melissa Kossler garners most of the attention after being named the Atlantic 10 Offensive Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year after leading the conference with 29 points, including a league-best 11 goals.
She is the first UMass player to be named the league’s best rookie since 1996 and the first one since 1999 to be the offensive player of the year. Kossler was joined on the All-Rookie team by midfielder Ainsley Frazier, who was a second-team all-conference honoree and ranks fifth nationally with 12 assists, and defender Serena Ahmed.
Dowiak said the integration of those younger players into the lineup took some time, but now that everyone on the team has grown accustomed to playing with each other, the Minutewomen are starting to thrive more on both ends of the field.
“You’ve got kids like that, you’ve got Fiona Kane, who’s our center back playing in a new system,” Dowiak said. “You have players like Serena Ahmed, who’s our left wing back. They came in and just had a lot of instinctual capacity, and we let them play off those instincts. Now we’re at a point where everyone else is getting to know who they are and they’re getting to know (our veterans), and those relationships are really starting to show in the creativity of how we move the ball.”
The Minutewomen are in a unique position this weekend in St. Louis with a chance to continue to accomplish milestones the program hasn’t accomplished in awhile. UMass has played for the Atlantic 10 title just once since last winning it in 1997 – a 5-1 loss to Dayton in 2011 – and that 1997 team was the last time the Minutewomen played in the national tournament.
If UMass can get past George Washington on Friday, either top-seed Saint Louis or No. 4 La Salle await the Minutewomen in Sunday’s final. Dowiak said his message to the players has been less about the opponent and more about focusing on being the best possible version of UMass the team can be this weekend.
“We’re trying to diminish the hype as a coaching staff,” Dowiak said. “Go into these games saying we know that our soccer is good enough to win, so let’s let our soccer be good. Don’t be nervous, nervous means you’re not ready, and we’re ready. That’s really been the message for us as a staff to them in the last week or so. Trust in what we’ve been doing well all year, trust in our tactics, trust in each other.”