Patience is a virtue.
Ashley Haden’s junior season as goalkeeper of the undefeated Western Washington women’s soccer team demonstrates that good things come to those who wait.
During the four-year span that would represent the entire playing career of most college athletes, the Hockinson High School graduate got into six games during two seasons.
She was redshirted in 2010 then appeared in one game as a freshman in 2011 before a training injury resulted in a medical redshirt for the 2012 season. With her right knee surgically repaired, she played in five games last year as a sophomore before taking over in front of the WWU net this season.
Haden looks at the bright side.
“Coming in as a freshman, playing college soccer is completely different,” she said. “It’s a much faster-paced game, the shots are harder — everything is just much faster. My freshman year, I just really tried to learn to pick up the pace of my game. Having these four years not playing, I’ve been able to learn from the goalies who were here before me and the goalie coaches that I’ve had over the years at Western. They’ve all taught me something different that’s helped me improve and become the goalkeeper that I am today. Obviously, I want to play and I want to be out on the field, but having those four years has actually really helped me improve my technique.”
Season statistics
After those four years of preparation, Haden’s time is now.
With Haden playing 97 percent of the time this season, Western Washington is 15-0-3 and ranked No. 14 in NCAA Division II by the National Soccer Coaches Association of America, No. 1 in the NCAA-II West Region.
Haden has allowed four goals all season — one of them an own goal — and the Vikings have only twice trailed in any game. WWU leads NCAA-II with a goals-against average of 0.22 (Haden’s 0.217 ranks third individually in NCAA-II), a team save percentage of .922 (Haden’s is .938), and shutting out opponents in 77.8 percent of games (14 of 18).
Impressive, but Haden and the Vikings are more interested in the undefeated results than the numbers that lead to it.
“It’s always nice to get recognition because we do put a lot of work into it, but when it comes down to it, we’re there to play the game and we don’t focus on it,” Haden said of the defensive statistics. “We focus on the game at hand.”
Haden is quick to point out that none of that is only because of her.
“It’s really nice to get out there and show what I can do — and I have a great defensive line that makes my job really easy,” she said. “They have faith in me that I’ll stop the shots, and I have faith that they’ll keep the shots limited. That helps a lot. They do a great job of reading the flow of the game and picking off those crosses and winning balls in the air and stopping through balls. A lot of the shots that are taken on us are from outside the 18, and that’s due to the fact that our defense does a great job.”
Title time
WWU completed an unbeaten regular season Saturday and claimed a third consecutive Great Northwest Athletic Conference regular season championship. The GNAC tournament is Thursday and Saturday at Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila. The Vikings face Central Washington in one semifinal, with Seattle Pacific and Montana State-Billings in the other.
The target on WWU as the dominant force in the GNAC draws every opponent’s best shot, which Haden said makes each conference game feel like a championship game.
Now the Vikings play for a tournament championship to go with another regular season title.
“Yes, we are the No. 1 seed in our conference, but no team is going to hand us the conference championship,” Haden said. “We know we have to work for it.”
The GNAC tournament champion claims an automatic bid to the NCAA-II regionals, with three at-large bids in the West Region. With the No. 1 ranking in the region, a one-loss WWU team would certainly seem to be in the front of the line for an at-large bid if it comes to that.
Haden and the Vikings would prefer not to take that chance.
“That at-large bid is not guaranteed,” she said. “It depends on other teams, not just us. Winning the championship takes that pressure off, and there’s knowing that we earned it outright. That’s awesome.”
