By Foster Nicholas | Sports Writer
With a full season under her belt and a pair of exhibition wins to start the 2023 campaign, Baylor soccer head coach Michelle Lenard is ready to continue her efforts to build a strong culture.
Following a 4-11-2 season in Lenard’s first year, the Bears went into the offseason with the goal to grow and find comfortability in Waco on the pitch and in the locker room. Lenard only had a few months to prepare in 2022, and now she’s focused on using the time available to her to make Baylor feel like home.
“I think for me and for the entire team, there’s an entirely different comfort level,” Lenard said. “We’ve had time to lay the foundation that we wanted to lay. This group has been fantastic so far. They’re easy to coach. It’s just been a fun environment. Everybody’s really enjoying themselves. That makes everybody more comfortable and makes you enjoy your job.”
Lenard molded the team in the direction she saw fit during her introductory season and has continued to shape a roster of her own. Baylor added 14 new faces in preparation for the upcoming year, and all players will be expected to make an impact.
“We feel good about our first 11 [players],” Lenard said. “I think what’s really great about this team right now is there’s a number of players who could be in the first 11 any day. So when we make our first round of substitutions, that group could be our first 11, and that’s a difference in depth from last year.”
Baylor scored 14 goals for all of 2022. In just two exhibition matches against the University of Oklahoma and Tarleton State University, the Bears scored seven. The team is focusing on having a stronger attack for the regular season.
“We have multiple scoring threads,” Lenard said. “There’s a lot of people, and not all of them are going to score 15 to 20 goals a year, but if they’re all scoring a handful of goals, we’re already in a better position [than] last year. We wanted to create a lot of chances on goal. We did that [and] we scored some great goals, and these are not one-off type goals. We’re replicating a lot of the same type of goals, which is a really positive sign that we’ll be able to continue doing that going into the regular season.”
Dallas Baptist University transfer and senior midfielder Ashley Merrill joined the Baylor squad last year and said she has meshed well with her teammates. Merrill said time was critical and she feels more in tune with the locker room.
“Coming into a new program and being older, it was hard because you come in and you’re new, so you’re not really a leader, and that was kind of hard for me,” Merrill said. “We have minimal upperclassmen, so I knew I had to step up. Everyone knew the expectations that the leaders now have and what we want for the team. I think we all want the same thing, so whenever you have a leader that wants the same thing as you, you listen to them and you follow them.”
Lenard adjusted not only to the differences on the pitch but also to the challenges off of it. Between extensive hours of travel and difficult academics, Lenard said she’s focused on supporting players as college students to help in-game performance.
“Knowing how to manage [travel and academics] better and support our athletes is going to help our players play to the best of their ability,” Lenard said. “I do think that the model that we came in with can and will work. We spent a lot of time teaching it, and we brought in some players that are just more suited for it. I feel really confident that we’ve learned from last year, but we’re ready to be a better team now.”
The team spent the spring focused on cultivating unity and creating relationships that will translate from the locker room onto the pitch.
“I really liked springtime as a team because there’s a lot of time to grow, develop and focus on our relationships off-field with each other,” graduate student forward Jenna Patterson said. “Bringing in new people in the spring is honestly sometimes more beneficial because we use that time and summer to really get to know each other before going into the fall.”
The green and gold will start its season with three road matches before heading home for a duel with Louisiana Tech University at 7 p.m. on Aug. 31.
