Goalkeeper Carter is Saints’ stopper

Jamie Carter just does her job.

Carter’s workplace is between the goalposts for the Carroll College women’s soccer team, and the Camas High School graduate has been earning strong performance evaluations for three seasons now.

“I just try to do my job,” she said. “If they end up getting a goal, OK. Sure. We’ll try to get one back. I just try to do my job, and if they don’t score, I did my job.”

Carter doing her job has led this season to a Cascade Collegiate Conference championship for the Saints, making them an automatic qualifier for the NAIA Women’s Soccer National Championship, which begins Nov. 21 with opening-round games on campus sites. But next is the conference tournament for No. 1 seed Carroll this week in Springfield, Ore.

An All-Frontier Conference selection as a freshman and Frontier Conference Player of the Year last year at the Helena, Mont., school, Carter has allowed 10 goals in 18 games during her junior regular season, posting an 0.855 save percentage and a 0.57 goals-against average as the Saints (12-5-1) claimed an outright CCC title with a 9-1-1 slate in their first year in a new conference.

Carter said that patience describes her playing style while allowing just 38 goals in three seasons, 18 of those as a freshman.

“I guess you could say I’m patient,” she said. “I wait for the ball to come to me, then at the right moment, I go out and get the ball.”

While statistics like goals-against average are ascribed to goalkeepers, the rest of the team obviously plays a significant role in how many dangerous scoring opportunities Carter faces from Carroll opponents.

“I’m going to brag about my defense for a little bit, OK? They’re amazing,” Carter said. “Three of the four backs are juniors, so I’ve played with them for three years, then the fourth one is a senior. They’re all-around, very strong players, and I trust them a lot.

“Sure, I’ll make a good save every now and then, but without our defense, we wouldn’t be as good as we are.”

Carter said she was “very nervous” as her collegiate soccer career began, but as a freshman she beat out two goalkeepers who had already been part of the Saints program and started every game. Beginning to gain experience early has proven beneficial as she has become a veteran presence in front of the net.

“It helps me so much now,” she said. “My confidence level is up. Obviously, my skill level has improved a lot, and just getting to play for three years now with about the same starting players — we’re just kind of family out on the field. We’ve started with each other and played together for the last three years.”

Carroll is 10-1-1 against NAIA competition this season, with a loss to the College of Idaho and scoreless draw with the University of Great Falls in conference play.

Two of the Saints’ losses were road games against NCAA Division II foes Montana State-Billings and Seattle Pacific.

Carter said the 4-0 loss at SPU on Halloween was particularly instructive for the Saints, who fell behind in the third minute and trailed 3-0 in the 26th before holding their own the rest of the way against a team ranked No. 5 in the NCAA-II West Region and runner-up of the Great Northwest Athletic Conference tournament.

“They definitely took us by surprise in the first half, I guess you could say, but finally by the second half, we had settled down,” Carter said.

And the lesson learned for nationals? “I guess just don’t be scared of a team,” she said. “Show them how we know how to play and prove to them that we deserve to be out there with them.”

Conference change

Three Montana schools — Carroll (Helena), UGF (Great Falls) and Rocky Mountain College (Billings) — left the Frontier Conference to become associate members of the CCC this season. With 12 member schools, the CCC holds two automatic qualifying positions to the NAIA national tournament.

One result of joining the CCC is a lot of long bus rides. Carter just laughed when asked if the team ever flies for games. The conference road trip to play Southern Oregon in Ashland is about an 1,800-mile round trip.

“It’s a lot of team bonding,” Carter said of the trips. “A lot of us are in the same classes, so we’ll have study groups on the bus. We watch a lot of movies. We get to know each other very well on the bus.”

Joining a new conference “actually was kind of nerve-wracking,” Carter said, because the Saints had no familiarity with their new foes other than UGF and RMC.

“We had no idea what to expect from them,” she said. “We just took it game by game, and did pretty good. We do set goals at the beginning of every year, and one of our goals was to get one of the two spots into nationals. We didn’t really plan on getting the top spot, but we wanted to get one of the two. It just turned out that we ended up winning the whole conference and getting the No. 1 spot into nationals.”

While the Saints have secured a berth to NAIA nationals regardless of what happens this week in the CCC tournament, the Saints have set a high standard for themselves with their regular season success.

“I guess you could say there’s no pressure, but at the same time, we’re No. 1 in the conference, so why wouldn’t we win the conference tournament?” Carter said. “Our mentality right now is to go in there and win the entire conference tournament and hope for the best at nationals.”

Thursday’s foe, UGF, is the No. 8 seed, but a team the Saints have not beaten this season after a wind-swept scoreless draw Oct. 11 in Helena. That certainly helps keep the Saints focused on the conference tournament.

“Yes, it does,” Carter said. “It drives our fire. It drives our motivation.”

For continued success, they have to keep helping each other do their jobs.

“I’d say the main thing is communication: me communicating with my defense, defense communicating with the (midfielders) and the mids communicating with the forwards,” Carter said. “It all ties together. Communication is the No. 1 thing that helps us win games.”